Yet another show trial held by another congressional committee on the FDA...There have been four or five over the last two months on heparin alone. Andy von Eschenbach, who is gaining momentum, along with the FDA, in shifting the agency towards a science and systems based approach to regulation -- using real time technology to promote full time compliance -- has to sit and take the following from the likes of Bart Stupak (D-Michigan):
"Last year, this nation's regulatory failures resulted in dead dogs and cats. This year, it has tragically led to the deaths of people," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich. "If we don't make some rapid progress on fixing the foreign drug inspection program, the next melamine or heparin tragedy will soon be upon us."
That's rich coming from a guy who helped push up the suicide rates by scaring parents away from antidepressants. and who is pushing for drug importation at a time when Al Qaeda and Hezbollah are involved in drug counterfeiting....Andy must have to shower after sitting through such a show trial...
www.fraudaid.com/scamspeak/conprods.htm
Meanwhile the Steve Nissen fear factory spews out another piece of tabloid medicine: EKG monitoring of all kids getting stimulants for ADHD.. Now there's a way to achieve Nissen (who has never studied ADHD) goal of making a physician's hand quiver before writing a scrip for the drug....But will it improve prescribing? Ron Winslow of the WSJ nails it:
"Since 1999, fewer than 30 sudden deaths among children have been linked to the drugs, which are currently taken by more than 2.5 million youngsters in the U.S. Issues of cost, available expertise in reading children's ECGs and concern about false-positive tests are prompting some experts to question the rationale for urging an ECG in particular.
"This is a $250 million recommendation," says Mike Ackerman, a pediatric cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who estimates the total cost of an ECG at about $100. "We're really trying to find a needle in a haystack, and we have no data yet to know that the screening program they're recommending would capture" those few at-risk individuals. Dr. Ackerman was a member of another American Heart Association panel that last year stopped short of recommending routine ECG screening for heart abnormalities in young competitive athletes."
Read the Wall Street Journal article
FInally a pattern appears to emerging that has escaped even the great John Wennberg: the life expectancy of poor people is declining even as that of others is increasing. Women in particular are dying earlier than men in rural areas. Can we say Medicaid and SCHIP anyone? And I should note that Frank Lichtenberg spotted a decline in life expectancy among the elderly in the VA, the same VA that Shannon Brownlee -- Wennberg's Boswell -- is pushing as the example of what we all should be forced into in the Dartmouth comparative effectiveness utopia. Eeech...
Here's the article by the ever wonderful Maggie Fox of Reuters with a link to the study which is pretty methodologically sound:
www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN2146521720080422
"Last year, this nation's regulatory failures resulted in dead dogs and cats. This year, it has tragically led to the deaths of people," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich. "If we don't make some rapid progress on fixing the foreign drug inspection program, the next melamine or heparin tragedy will soon be upon us."
That's rich coming from a guy who helped push up the suicide rates by scaring parents away from antidepressants. and who is pushing for drug importation at a time when Al Qaeda and Hezbollah are involved in drug counterfeiting....Andy must have to shower after sitting through such a show trial...
www.fraudaid.com/scamspeak/conprods.htm
Meanwhile the Steve Nissen fear factory spews out another piece of tabloid medicine: EKG monitoring of all kids getting stimulants for ADHD.. Now there's a way to achieve Nissen (who has never studied ADHD) goal of making a physician's hand quiver before writing a scrip for the drug....But will it improve prescribing? Ron Winslow of the WSJ nails it:
"Since 1999, fewer than 30 sudden deaths among children have been linked to the drugs, which are currently taken by more than 2.5 million youngsters in the U.S. Issues of cost, available expertise in reading children's ECGs and concern about false-positive tests are prompting some experts to question the rationale for urging an ECG in particular.
"This is a $250 million recommendation," says Mike Ackerman, a pediatric cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who estimates the total cost of an ECG at about $100. "We're really trying to find a needle in a haystack, and we have no data yet to know that the screening program they're recommending would capture" those few at-risk individuals. Dr. Ackerman was a member of another American Heart Association panel that last year stopped short of recommending routine ECG screening for heart abnormalities in young competitive athletes."
Read the Wall Street Journal article
FInally a pattern appears to emerging that has escaped even the great John Wennberg: the life expectancy of poor people is declining even as that of others is increasing. Women in particular are dying earlier than men in rural areas. Can we say Medicaid and SCHIP anyone? And I should note that Frank Lichtenberg spotted a decline in life expectancy among the elderly in the VA, the same VA that Shannon Brownlee -- Wennberg's Boswell -- is pushing as the example of what we all should be forced into in the Dartmouth comparative effectiveness utopia. Eeech...
Here's the article by the ever wonderful Maggie Fox of Reuters with a link to the study which is pretty methodologically sound:
www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN2146521720080422
