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From Johanna Ryan: Last week, RxISK joined with forty-one other organizations from across the U.S. and Canada to urge the FDA to withdraw its approval for a new drug. Zohydro ER is actually not so “new” – it’s pure hydrocodone, a synthetic opiate which has been widely prescribed for many years in the U.S. However, Zohydro will contain up to ten times the hydrocodone available … [Read more...] about “We ask you to put the public’s health ahead of industry interests”

Editorial Note: The Low Dose Naltrexone post from Osama Mustafa earlier this week is quite striking. Many will read it and be persuaded. Others will read it and think such low doses of a drug cannot do anything. And yet others will read the following few words and begin to doubt where they may have been persuaded before - Osama has a business selling Herbal Medicines. For … [Read more...] about Low Dose Naltrexone: Can It Work?

Editorial Note: RxISK can sometimes seem to be all about the horrors of treatment. It's not. It's about people making the best use of drugs to make their lives better. Central to this is finding a doctor who will believe you when you tell him that something good or bad is happening. The horror arises when people are not listened to - when the "evidence" is given greater weight … [Read more...] about Low Dose Naltrexone

Editorial Note: This is a follow up post from John Scheel to his Sticks in the Throat piece earlier in the week. The theme here fits very well with two posts in the last week on davidhealy.org - Guilty and Psychiatry Gone Astray by Peter Gøtzsche. Often in life it is the very simple things we overlook and when tradition and protocols and procedures get locked in people are … [Read more...] about Sticks in the Throat: Boxology

Editorial Note: This post by John Scheel from Ontario brings out how medication and devices can lead to what we've lately been calling Drug Traffic Accidents. The concept seems a better fit to what happened here than either side effects or adverse reactions. John has a wider ranging book "Someone Gives a S**t” (see www.johnscheel.com) which gives a feel for the passions that … [Read more...] about Sticks in the Throat

Editorial Note: Ken Spriggs is one of our regular contributors. This is cross-posted from his blog where he takes on all issues Crohns. The original post comes complete with all references mentioned here. [It's no longer available at http://diyehr.com/e-patient-boundaries-and-the-publishing-profiteers/] In recent months, the BMJ have trumpeted the patient power revolution … [Read more...] about E-Patients: No Free Lunch?

Slightly over three months ago, the idea of an AbbVie was born. She was named after the pharmaceutical company AbbVie - until recently Abbott Laboratories. She was born from the union of a legal action taken by AbbVie in the European Court against the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) data access policy. As a result of Peter Gøtzsche’s efforts in 2010 the European ombudsman … [Read more...] about Let’s Do The AbbVie Again

Five weeks ago Johanna Ryan and Kim Witczak wrote a letter to Stacy London. It covered Stacy's role in AbbVie's Humiraverse. It wasn't a critical letter. People in Humiraverses can't throw stones - the company will always win. Stacy is probably better placed than anyone to make a difference to AbbVie and Pharma's current campaign to close down access to clinical trial data … [Read more...] about Letter to Stacy London

Editorial Note: Below is the press release for a potentially significant development in clinical trial publishing - the RIAT Act. Doshi and colleagues are aiming to publish studies that companies have buried or to correct studies that are published but grossly misleading. The main reason for non-publication or misleading publication is that companies do not want you to know … [Read more...] about RxISK and the RIAT Act

All of a sudden, regulators seem to be trying to step up their game. The Canadian regulator, Health Canada, is placing notices in 22 professional journals explaining the process of and the importance of adverse event reporting. They claim to be hoping to develop a reporting standard among healthcare professionals rather than make reporting mandatory. Are they really doing … [Read more...] about Beware Regulators Bearing Gifts