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Archive for July, 2013

ennui…

The DSM-5 has been out for a month and a half and is already old news, if even that. But a few commentaries are beginning to appear with an editorial bent now that the guns have been silenced. Here are a couple of interesting viewpoints from Canada: Ian Hacking, Philosophy of Science, and Edward Shorter, […]

doubt even here…

UK pharma shows signs of dangerous addiction GlaxoSmithKline doesn’t seem to be able to kick the bribery habit The Guardian July 28, 2013 via Pharmagossip The last time anyone remembers a row over Brits forcing drugs on the Chinese market, it ended with our boys taking Hong Kong. But anyone predicting that British interests will […]

a closing argument…

I’ll have to admit that my iPhone® skills are mostly limited to receiving. Typing with thumbs is a recently evolved skill that passed me by, so I’m reduced to using an inaccurate index finger. That post from on the road a week ago was from a motel lobby computer on a very rainy day [an […]

more glaxo-china…

Back from Maine today in time for a mega-nap. This is a follow-up from the last post written on the road… Bribes, Sex, Fraud! Did Glaxo Violate Its Corporate Integrity Agreement? Pharmalot by Ed Silverman 7/24/2013 The ongoing scandals that GlaxoSmithKline faces in China – bribes involving senior execs and clinical trial failures in R&D […]

an irreducible conflict…

A bitter pill for Glaxo in China Sir Andrew Witty is preparing to admit failings following bribery allegations against GSK Daily Telegraph By Denise Roland 20 Jul 2013 Britain’s biggest drug maker did not know it was under criminal investigation in China until police stormed its Shanghai offices in late June. When news filtered back […]

on brief sabbatical…

a sticky wicket…

In her testimony before the UK Public Accounts Committee in the earlier post [goldacre and godlee… ], Dr. Fiona Godlee says [@15:55]: "Unless we can find a solution to the commercial incompetence problem, we have to recognize that the pharmaceutical industry has an irreducible conflict of interest in relation to the way it represents its […]

Abandoned: Chestnut Lodge Asylum…

So Saturday, we’re off for a couple of weeks to the coast of Maine and I have no clue about whether the Internet even goes there or not, but friend Martha found something to fill in the space. No, this is not one of those cheesy photoshop graphics I sometimes come up with. It’s a […]

goldacre and godlee…

This is a video of Ben Goldacre and Fiona Godlee [Editor BMJ] testifying before the UK Public Accounts Committee specifically about Tamiflu, but their testimony speaks to the whole point of data transparency. We’re probably all familiar with Ben Goldacre, but Fiona Godlee is herself a formidable force…

no laughing matter…

One of my most frequently told stories [maybe already told here before but I can’t find it] came from my days running the psychiatric emergency room at Grady Hospital – Atlanta’s inner city charity hospital. I was recently graduated myself and supervising a resident – a "city boy" with tons of education. He had been […]