madbook ~

DRUG WARS
Things are never simple | Vitamin Supplement providers, manufactures of "performance enhancing" drugs and Marijuana growers are excoriated and prosecuted with vigor by the Feds | Not that there aren't risks with unknown elements | But the Big Pharma Industry has generally been treated with kid gloves and tender loving care by the same politicians | Be it the no-hands approach to scadalous prescription drug costs, or a see-no-evil attitude about adverse reactions and dangers to drugs being legally pushed | Is it any wonder that mental patients complain of being guinea pigs? [rhetorical question on my part] Some of the latest stuff in the headlines |
Doping Bad [from The Mercury News †] There is Balco, the alleged Bay Area doping ring for elite athletes. And there is Balco, the cradle of conspiracies -- a source of carefully planted media leaks and an alleged political agenda at the highest level of government | A court hearing Friday morning in San Francisco federal court mainly dealt with the latter allegations. Judge Susan Illston took under consideration complaints and counter-complaints swirling around the case.
     ``Balco is now a household word, and, thanks to misinformation contained in the many leaks, it is a word as loaded as a hand grenade,'' the lawyers for Victor Conte Jr. and James Valente, Balco's president and vice president, respectively, wrote in an informational motion submitted Friday.
     ``It is now very doubtful that these defendants can ever receive a fair trial -- anywhere.''
     The political allegations are being leveled by J. Tony Serra, Anderson's attorney, who in April filed a motion suggesting that the case was powered by political motivations and was ultimately intended to help get President Bush re-elected.
     Serra had asked the judge to allow him to get an internal memorandum from the government that could show the case being orchestrated from the White House | Serra said the goal of eliminating performance-enhancing drugs from athletics was ``laudable,'' but that unless the judge orders the prosecution to produce the memorandums, ``We will forever believe that we are being sacrificed for the greater good of the establishment, and that's not right.''
     Prosecutor Jeff Nedrow argued that Serra had no evidence to support his charge.
     There's more... †
Merek to Tell the Public of Adverse Clinical Testing [from The New York Times †] Merck & Company says it will post the results of its clinical trials on drugs on a Web site run by the National Institutes of Health. The move comes ahead of a House subcommittee hearing this week where, it is expected, drug companies will be excoriated for refusing to publish unfavorable clinical trial results | Merck said Friday that it had already posted on the Web site, ClinicalTrials.gov, the outlines of 46 studies, or every trial for which the company is currently recruiting patients as well as some others. By the end of the month, the company will post 50 more trials that are already under way but where patients are no longer being recruited. And as the studies are published, Merck will post links to their results, the company said |
     "Merck has long been committed to publishing the results of all of our trials in a timely manner," said Dr. Peter Honig, a senior vice president, "and now we're strengthening that commitment." One reason for the new postings, Dr. Honig said, is the industry's growing image problem |
     "Let's face it, the perceptions of the pharmaceutical industry as a whole are not healthy at the moment," he said |
     There's more... †
Pfizer 'Fesses Up: Antipsychotics can cause Diabetes [from Associated Press] The Food and Drug Administration and pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. warned doctors that the company's antipsychotic drug Geodon has been linked to extremely high blood sugar and diabetes | Pfizer's letter to doctors, announced on Tuesday, follows a September 2003 FDA request that manufacturers of the six most widely used antipsychotic drugs revise labels to reflect additional risks | The remaining drugs affected by the FDA request include Eli Lilly's Zyprexa, Bristol-Myers Squibb's Abilify, Novartis' Clozaril, Janssen's Risperdal and AstraZeneca's Seroquel.
     Pfizer's warning letter to doctors said "few reports" of hyperglycemia or diabetes were noted in patients prescribed Geodon. But it also noted fewer patients were treated with that particular antipsychotic | As a whole, so-called atypical antipsychotic drugs were linked to such adverse events as diabetes and high blood sugar - in some cases, extreme enough to induce coma or death | Geodon, approved to treat schizophrenia, on Aug. 23 gained FDA approval for the treatment of acute bipolar mania |

posted by Will Brady @ 03:27