Tag Archives: drugmakers

Why Drug Companies Are Shy About Sharing On Facebook

People love how Facebook lets them comment on and share other people’s posts. But the idea of sharing on social media has got drug companies scared. When Facebook told drugmakers that they had to start allowing comments on their Facebook pages, some of those pages started disappearing.

“Take On Depression” suddenly disappeared. “ADHD Moms” vanished, too. So did “Epilepsy Advocate.” In the past, drug companies had been reluctant to create Facebook pages without a guarantee that they’d be closed to public comments — a unique accommodation on Facebook’s part. But that accommodation ended last week.

FDA Issues Draft Guidance For Investigator Conflicts

In another effort to shed light on untoward relationships, the FDA has just issued a draft guidance on financial conflicts of interest for clinical investigators and the drugmakers that enlist their assistance. The document is designed to revise a 10-year set of rules and address an issue that has grown increasingly contentious in recent years.

The business of ADHD

As the DSM-V looms closer to becoming a reality, I can’t help but think of words from the man who chaired the committee for the DSM-IV. Allen Frances, M.D., wrote in the in the LA Times:

As chairman of the task force that created the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), which came out in 1994, I learned from painful experience how small changes in the definition of mental disorders can create huge, unintended consequences.

Our panel tried hard to be conservative and careful but inadvertently contributed to three false ‘epidemics’ – attention deficit disorder, autism and childhood bipolar disorder. Clearly, our net was cast too wide and captured many ‘patients’ who might have been far better off never entering the mental health system.

New poll shows 81% of consumers are concerned over Pharma’s financial relationships with their doctors

Another part of the poll reported that Americans don’t trust their doctors to think independently about prescription drugs, not when Big Pharma is involved. Almost 70 percent of consumers surveyed think drugmakers have too much influence on physicians, and 81 percent say they’re worried about pharma gifts to–and financial relationships with–their doctors.

Study finds 85% of new drugs offer few if any benefits & are significant cause of US deaths due to toxic side effects

Donald Light, a sociologist and professor of comparative health policy at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, contends that the spate of instances in which drugmakers hid or downplayed info about serious side effects – or overstated benefits – has transformed the market for medicines into one for lemons.