Tag Archives: doctors

The end of antidepressants? Studies show they’re no more effective than placebo yet carry serious health risks

Watchers of a February broadcast of “60 Minutes” may have been stunned to learn that studies have been conducted that seem to prove that antidepressants, on the whole, are no more effective than placebo.

This revelation about antidepressants – among the top-selling and top-prescribed drugs in the United States – may have been new news to some, but the studies conducted by Irving Kirsch, PhD, and colleagues, have been raising eyebrows and garnering attention since 1998. Which begs the question, have Kirsch’s studies had any impact on the sales of antidepressants and/or on the prescribing patterns of doctors?

U.S. to Force Drug Firms to Report Money Paid to Doctors

Manufacturers of prescription drugs and devices will have to report if they pay a doctor to help develop, assess and promote new products — or if, for example, a pharmaceutical sales agent delivers $25 worth of bagels and coffee to a doctor’s office for a meeting. Royalty payments to doctors, for inventions or discoveries, and payments to teaching hospitals for research or other activities will also have to be reported.

The new standards carry out legislation championed by Senators Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, and Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin. The legislation was included in the 2010 health care overhaul.

“The goal is to let the sun shine in and make information available to foster accountability,” Mr. Grassley said.

Doctors rarely face consequences for drug kickbacks

Two years ago, drugmaker Eli Lilly pleaded guilty to illegally marketing its blockbuster antipsychotic Zyprexa for elderly patients. Lilly paid $1.4 billion in criminal penalties and settlements in four civil lawsuits. But a doctor named as a co-defendant in one suit – for allegedly taking kickbacks to prescribe the drug extensively at nursing homes – never was pursued.

Pharma spends billions marketing to doctors; Eli Lilly paid $22 million in first 3 months of the year

Lilly was forced to disclose its physician pay data, which it calls a “faculty registry,” as part of a $1.4-billion settlement with the federal government earlier this year.

Lilly spread $22-million among 3,400 health care providers nationwide during the first three months of the year.

PR Web: CCHRInt Announces FDA Reported Psychiatric Drug Side Effects Search Engine

For the first time the side effects of psychiatric drugs that have been reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by doctors, pharmacists, other health care providers and consumers have been decrypted from the FDA’s MedWatch reporting system and been made available to the public in an easy to search psychiatric drug side effects database and search engine. The database is provided as a free public service by the mental health watchdog, Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR).