The April 1 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association has an article written by a group of doctors who recommend that medical professional associations adopt stricter conflict of interest guidelines. The new proposals call for associations to refuse general budget support from the industry.
The Bravewell Collaborative, a philanthropic organization, partnered with the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene this past February’s Summit on Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public. The primary goal is to make a shift in US healthcare. John Weeks, publisher and editor of The Integrator Blog, poses this question to the integrative medical […]
According to Peter Chowka of NaturalHealthLine, the first two months of President Obama’s administration “have set the stage for the greatest transformation of American healthcare since the country declared its independence from Great Britain 233 years ago.” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) has been quoted as saying Congress hopes to enact a mandate that […]
Two recent articles—one in the New York Times, the other in the Wall Street Journal—speak to a crisis of integrity in the medical industry that has led insiders like Dr. Jerome Kassirer of Yale and Tufts to muse that some of their colleagues appear to act as “paid prostitutes for the drug industry.”
Simon Baron-Cohen, PhD, director of the Autism Research Centre at University of Cambridge, recently published a study that showed a positive correlation between levels of fetal testosterone (measured by amniocentesis) and the number of autistic traits a child shows post-natally. None of the children in the study, however, had actually developed autism. What was being […]
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) has introduced the Pharmaceutical Market Access and Drug Safety Act, S.525, and twenty-four other senators have already become co-signers. A similar House bill has also been introduced. Both bills allow for the re-importation of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada and other countries. American drug manufacturers sell medicines to foreign countries for […]
Last week, the US Supreme Court struck a blow to the pharmaceutical industry when they ruled that litigants may sue for damages if they are harmed by unsafe drugs—even if the drug manufacturers have satisfied federal regulators.
A fascinating article in the New York Times last week told the story of Matt Zerden, a student at Harvard Medical School who was troubled when he heard his pharmacology professor repeatedly promote the benefits of cholesterol drugs and seemed to belittle a student who asked about side effects.
Physicians who use complementary and alternative therapies in their clinical practices often face charges from their respective state boards of medicines for practicing “outside the standard of care.” USA Today has conducted a review of the state pharmacy board panels, who are assigned to oversee prescription drug safety for American consumers. They found that nearly […]
An inflammatory article appeared last week in the Wall Street Journal called “The Touch that Doesn’t Heal .” It deserves a thorough reading and some impassioned letters to the editor. The article, written by Steve Salerno, claims that “Americans pay billions for alternative medicine—with nothing to show for it.”