Why is this so often the pattern?
A powerful drug is developed with some benefits for a difficult to treat population.
It has significant side effects, which are downplayed.
Those side effects have huge impacts on the quality of studies done on the medication (e.g. drop out rates).
The studies are designed to make the drug look more effective than it is.
Studies that indicate no or little benefit (especially when balanced against the side effects) are aggressively suppressed.
The drug is marketed to populations that have not been studied for the drug's safety or efficacy (depressed adolescents, etc).
The lines between marketing and the research are obliterated by a web of professional and personal relationships, by advertising money, travel benefits, and other blandishments.
Finally, of course, thousands of people are grievously injured.
Again, from our friend at the Inquirer:
Does the world have the right to know about negative studies on AstraZeneca's potent antipsychotic drug Seroquel?
A powerful drug is developed with some benefits for a difficult to treat population.
It has significant side effects, which are downplayed.
Those side effects have huge impacts on the quality of studies done on the medication (e.g. drop out rates).
The studies are designed to make the drug look more effective than it is.
Studies that indicate no or little benefit (especially when balanced against the side effects) are aggressively suppressed.
The drug is marketed to populations that have not been studied for the drug's safety or efficacy (depressed adolescents, etc).
The lines between marketing and the research are obliterated by a web of professional and personal relationships, by advertising money, travel benefits, and other blandishments.
Finally, of course, thousands of people are grievously injured.
Again, from our friend at the Inquirer:
Does the world have the right to know about negative studies on AstraZeneca's potent antipsychotic drug Seroquel?
Or whether company representatives promoted the drug for unapproved uses?
And what about details of sexual relationships between Wayne Macfadden, AstraZeneca's former U.S. medical director for Seroquel, and two women who researched and wrote papers supporting the drug's safety and efficacy?
A federal judge in Orlando may answer those questions as soon as today in a case stemming from personal-injury claims by 15,000 people that Seroquel triggered weight gain, diabetes, and other health problems.
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