Disciplined doctors receiving pharmaceutical funds

About 48 of the more than 1,730 California doctors who received money from pharmaceutical companies over the past 21 months have been the subject of disciplinary action, a database compiled by the investigative news organization ProPublica found. ProPublica found that the seven drug companies paid $6.7 million to 290 doctors who faced disciplinary action or other regulatory sanctions in various states. San Francisco psychiatrist Karin Hastik, for example, took $168,658 in speaking and consulting fees from Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline since 2009. But in May, the Medical Board of California placed Hastik on probation for negligence, prescribing drugs without prior examination, and failing to keep adequate records about a patient she had been caring for since 2000. Hastik did not return calls for comment.

Justice to Pharma: “Do the Perp Walk!”

Former GSK counsel is the first target in government’s executive-liability crackdown. Could J&J be next? The US Department of Justice filed criminal charges last week against Lauren Stevens, a former VP and assistant general counsel at GlaxoSmithKline. Going after pharma execs marks a seismic shift in the government’s efforts to stem the tide of fraud and other illegal pharma marketing practices, which a raft of billion-dollar settlements have so far failed to end. Stevens is charged with obstruction of an investigation, concealment and falsification of documents, and making false statements to the FDA in its 2002 investigation of off-label promotion of the antidepressant Wellbutrin for weight loss, an indication for which it has never been approved but has shown some clinical benefit. The DoJ says that it has evidence, in the vast paper and electronic documentation turned over by GSK, showing that Stevens hid and otherwise misled the agency about some 1,000 instances of GSK-paid doctors promoting Wellbutrin for weight loss to other doctors.

In Indiana, Psychiatrists Once Again Top the List of Top Drug Prescribers Under Medicaid/Medicare

The agency compiled a list of top prescribers overall in 2008 and top prescribers for certain psychiatric medications in 2008 and 2009, including Zyprexa, Geodon, Risperdal and Abilify. According to the list, the top overall prescriber in Indiana is Dr. Daniel Kinsey, a psychiatrist in Goshen. He wrote 2,894 prescriptions in 2008, which resulted in $791,289 in medication charges to the state. The next highest was Dr. Melinda Weekly, a psychiatrist in Bloomington, who wrote 2,456 prescriptions in 2008, resulting in charges to Indiana of $1.16 million. Other states have also compiled lists. In Texas, one doctor authorized 13,596 prescriptions for anxiety drug Xanax in 2008, and increased it to 14,170, according to a letter Grassley recently sent to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In Connecticut, one doctor ranked consistently as the top prescription writer across a full range of pharmaceuticals, Grassley said, writing 5,945 prescriptions in 2008 and 7,459 in 2009 for seven medications.

ADHD: Ritalin – Brain damage, heart attacks, hallucinations & liver damage

Ritalin is prescribed to 6 million children with ADHD every year and like all drugs comes with a long list of side effects including nervousness, nausea, dizziness, drowsiness, insomnia, joint pains, headaches, increased blood pressure, fever, rapid heartbeat, abdominal pain, and psychosis. Tom Sawyer may have been a layabout, a truant and self-indulgent. He may have picked fights with strangers for no apparent reason; but he was also resourceful, spirited and refreshingly clever. Huckleberry Finn was an illiterate outcast, but as a long term rafting companion he had no peer.

Pharmaceutical Scandal in Britain Sheds Disturbing New Light on Benzodiazepines

Touted as the world’s first wonder drug, benzodiazepines—”benzos” for short—were widely prescribed in the 1960s for anxiety and stress. Within a decade they had become the most commonly used treatment for such conditions in the States and Britain. Use of benzos such as Valium, Mogadon, and Librium in both countries was widespread. Today, the same class of drugs—including Klonopin, Xanax, and Ativan—is still frequently prescribed for anxiety and panic. Widely known to be addictive and to cause a range of serious side effects, benzos became less popular in the 1980s and 1990s owing largely to the rise of SSRI antidepressants, which were widely considered to be safer and nonaddictive. A combined search for benzos and “adverse effects” on PubMed yields a staggering 15,157 hits, ranging from sleep disorders and increased violence among patients to discontinuation problems and dependency issues that bear all the hallmarks of a serious addiction.