Weekly Roundup: Media Hits and Misses

11/03/2006 11:51 AM |

I know that lots of reporters are on leave or had very little time to go through the Family USA report. And FUSA knows that. The media was manipulated and used by FUSA and reporters should not be happy about it....The Family USA report continues to astound me...Here's a group that has been in favor of generic drug approvals and use and then turns around and claims that generic coverage is not meaningful, which is a weasel word for not having 100 percent of all drug costs covered for all seniors regardless of income or ability to pay. So much for means testing, right?

Another weasel word....generic equivalent instead of generic alternative. FUSA claims that most of the commonly used drugs have no generic equivalent, which means an exact copy. There are however, generic alternatives which might be cheaper and as effective (or not depending on the person) for all but 6 of the drugs FUSA lists. There are generic beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, pain relievers, anti-depressants, proton pump inhibitors, etc that FUSA ignored to paint a dire picture.

Finally, FUSA ignored the fact that many of the drugs on the Medicare formulary they regard as meaningul such as Aricept, Lipitor, Nexium, Prevacid, Evista, Celebrex...are not on the wonderful VA formulary it would use instead of the horrible private sector PBM model which by the way FUSA endorsed in 2000 when proposed by President Clinton and the Dems.

Another Media Miss....

Anti-Depressants Linked to Lower Suicide Rates

Researchers report an inverse relationship between antidepressant prescriptions and the rates of suicide in children and adolescents -- a finding that contradicts the Food and Drug Administration's "black box" warning for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor medications, also known as SSRI drugs.

The University of Illinois at Chicago epidemiologic study appears in the November issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.

The researchers examined suicide rates of children ages 5-14 in each county of the United States from 1996 to 1998 and county-level data on SSRI prescriptions. The results were adjusted for sex, race, income, access to quality mental health care and variations in county-to-county suicide rates.

"We found that counties with the highest prescription rates for SSRI drugs had the lowest suicide rates in children and adolescents," said the lead author Robert Gibbons, director of the Center for Health Statistics and professor of biostatistics and psychiatry at UIC. "This is just the opposite of what you would predict if SSRI's were producing suicide."


Yeah, which comports with meta-analyses of randomized clinical trials and other epidemiological studies. So in light of the media's reporting on the opposite -- based on a handful of questionably conducted small studies -- where's the coverage?

So what are reporters looking at? Drug marketing practices...what a shock.

Med schools warn of drug sales pitches
By David Caruso (AP)

No point giving you the whole article since it is such a time worn theme....the pizza, the prizes, it corrupts.

The punchline of course is delivered once again by Jerome Kassirer who of course is beyond reproach on all things medical....


"Dr. Jerome Kassirer, a professor at the Tufts School of Medicine and a frequent critic of the doctor-pharmaceutical relationship, said schools need to do more than just lecture.

"The question to ask yourself about these programs is: What are the faculty doing? Because if the students walk away from those sessions and find out their faculty are off speaking for Pfizer, what are they going to think?"

My answer: I can't wait till I get a crack at that too.....

Or better yet how about a universal ban on speaking fees for everyone. Why should Kassirer get paid to spout his views. Isn't that a conflict? If he was really comitted to his cause, he would do it for nothing. How do I know that the money given to him by a group is causing him to shade or shape his view?

Similarly, reporters give talks for money on their views of the world? Doesn't that make them appear less objective and blur the distinction between their obligation as journalists to inform and simply being paid to give their opinion. How do I know that a reporter is truly being objective when they are receiving outside income to provide their opinion?

Sorry, no hits this week. Let's see what election week brings.

PS. Here's a photo of my son Zach doing urban combat training in the Negev.. (He is the one on the left) Can I repeat again how proud I am of him? Anyone who knows John Kerry's email please forward...  Read More & Comment...

AARPeeved

11/03/2006 09:45 AM |

Anybody else had enough of the AARP’s regular “Trends” reports on prescription drug pricing? I’d been tuning them out since the only difference from one report to the next was the date -- but Henry Waxman has reignited both my interest and my ire.

Let’s start with the actual report.

The first thing to note is that the AARP report relies on a measure of wholesale cost from a proprietary dataset – not the actual prices paid by cash customers. Patients with insurance (yes – like Part D) don’t ever see these prices. America’s insured focus their attention and anger on ever-rising co-pays (which increase many times-fold the price of the prescription medicines they are, in theory, linked to).

I think the folks over at Big Insurance (yes – like the AARP) have some ‘splaining to do.

Here's a link to the rest of the story ...

http://www.pharmexec.com/pharmexec/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=382532  Read More & Comment...

Unhappy Birthday

11/03/2006 08:36 AM |

One hundred years ago today, on November 3 1906, Alois Alzheimer, psychiatrist and pathologist, presented the first case of the disease that later came to bear his name in Tubingen Germany. The patient, Auguste D, developed dementia in her 50s and was so restless and confused that doctors prescribed balneotherapy - day long immersion in a lukewarm bath - to soothe her. When she was at her worst they knocked her out with chloroform.

According to an article in today's edition of The Independent (London), "A cure remains a distant dream."

Here is a link to that article:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article1951233.ece

We must not allow the walls that stymie progress towards finding better treatments (and, ultimately, cures) to stand. President Bush, Dr. von Eschenbach, Dr. Zerhouni, members of Congress: Tear down these walls.

Aggressive measures are required and one important way we can help advance this agenda is to forcefully support, fund, debate, and participate in the FDA's Critical Path agenda. This is a core function of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest (CMPI), the think tank home of drugwonks.com.

We invite you to join our crusade.  Read More & Comment...

AP reports. Drugwonks translates

11/02/2006 02:39 PM |

Medical schools train doctors to resist marketers' siren songs
The Associated Press By David B. Caruso
2 November 2006

NEW YORK (AP) - Medical schools in several states are strengthening programs that warn doctors and students not to be dazzled by drug company marketing practices.

DRUGWONKS TRANSLATION: Put on these sunglasses and place a wreath of garlic cloves in all examination rooms.

The Mount Sinai School of Medicine announced Wednesday that it would use a $400,000 grant to remind doctors to question sophisticated sales presentations and rely on solid science when deciding which medications to give patients.

DRUGWONKS TRANSLATION: So tell me, is your new product really more effective? Wow – did you see that shot! These are great seats.

The program is one of five receiving $1.9 million from the Attorney General Consumer and Prescriber Education Grant Program, which has awarded $11 million to 28 institutions interested in cautioning health care workers about pharmaceutical sales techniques.

DRUGWONKS TRANSLATION: Pharmaceutical sales representatives are really minions of Satan.

The Center for Evidence Based Policy at Oregon Health & Science University administers the grants.

DRUGWONKS TRANSLATION: When it comes to “evidence-based policy” we don’t really need evidence – and if you don’t agree you can give us back the check. That’s our policy.

One of the programs being implemented at Mount Sinai will be a new type of class at its Morchand Education Center, famous for training exercises in which actors play patients. For these new sessions, though, the actors will be playing pharmaceutical company sales representatives.

DRUGWONKS TRANSLATION: STELLAAAAA!!!!!!

Another part of Mount Sinai's program will advise health care providers how to tactfully deal with patients who see a drug on television and demand a prescription.

DRUGWONKS TRANSLATION: Hey – did you go to medical school too?

Money for the education programs comes from a $430 million settlement that resolved charges that pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. illegally paid doctors to prescribe its drug Neurontin for uses that had not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

DRUGWONKS TRANSLATION: Providing better medical education is Job One. Actually, that’s wrong, sorry – demonizing the pharmaceutical industry is Job One. My bad.

The next $6.5 million in grants will be used to inform consumers on how drugs are prescribed and marketed, said the Center for Evidence Based Policy

DRUGWONKS TRANSLATION: And the third traunch will be used to fund a program on better health outcomes through collective farming.  Read More & Comment...

Families USA Has a Strange Way of Showing Concern for Seniors

11/02/2006 12:06 PM |

The Families USA report claims to demonstrate that fewer seniors will have to stand alone drug plans that offer meaningful coverage through the doughnut hole. In fact, the report either deliberately ignores or fails to acknowledge a fundamental shift in the design of stand-alone plans for 2007. Namely, lower out of pocket spending for a larger number of medicines for seniors. And the number of plans who offer such an approach has actually doubled from last year.

Most plans actually fill the doughnut hole and eliminate the coverage gap before it even starts by encouraging seniors to use generic medicines instead of brand drugs when available. In turn, most plans have added more drugs to their formularies and kept co-pays for newer medicines low. As a result, more seniors – most of whom never had drug coverage before – will have a wider choice of drugs and lower out of pocket expenses.

Ironically, for all its concern about providing seniors with meaningful doughnut hole coverage the FUSA proposal to use the VA system of price controls and drug formularies would create another kind of drug donught hole. It would create a gap in essential medicines. Only 38% of the drugs approved in the 1990s, and 19% of the drugs approved by the FDA since 2000, are on the VA National Formulary. Only 22% (17) of the 77 priority-review drugs approved since 1997 are on the 2005 National Formulary. By comparison, 100 percent of both types of FDA approved medicines are on the AARP Medicare formulary.  Read More & Comment...

The Washington Post said it so it must be true

11/02/2006 10:20 AM |

The Washington Post gets it.

Big Time.

And just in time.

Here's the first paragraph of an editorial from today's paper:

An Election on Drugs
The Democrats oversell a Medicare solution.
Thursday, November 2, 2006; Page A16

ONE OF the Democrats' election talking points is a promise to revamp the Medicare prescription drug benefit. They paint the 2003 legislation as a sellout to pharmaceutical firms: Rather than having Medicare officials use the government's bargaining power to keep drug prices down, the law left the job of negotiating prices to private insurers. The Medicare drug benefit has actually turned out to be cheaper than projected, and most beneficiaries say they are satisfied with it. But the House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), nonetheless accuses Republicans of "putting pharmaceutical companies and HMOs first at the expense of America's seniors."

And here's the last graph:

It's fair to object that consumers may not be equipped to make smart decisions; the market signals they send may reflect the success of gauzy drug commercials rather than clinical evidence. The attraction of the market-based model depends on consumers being guided more by science-based Web sites created by universities or other groups. It's an open question whether consumers, led perhaps by their insurers, will learn to make sophisticated drug choices, but the fact that Medicare patients already buy more generic medications than other Americans is an encouraging sign of the capacity for smart purchasing. A switch to government purchasing of Medicare drugs would choke off this experiment before it had a chance to play out, and it would usher in its own problems. For the moment, the Democrats would do better to invest their health-care energy elsewhere.

To read the entire editorial, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com

Will someone with Nancy Pelosi's e-mail address please forward this article to her office ASAP.  Read More & Comment...

Joseph Mercola: Pharmaceutical Fraud

11/02/2006 10:17 AM |

I find it incredible that the media slams drug companies for marketing medicines that undergo years of rigorous clinical testing yet fail to investigate schlockmeister's like Kevin Trudeau or the most recent peddler of pharmaceutical porn, Joseph Mercola. Mercola is supposedly an osteopath who has a book entitled the Great Bird Flu Hoax on the NY Times Best seller list. The book claims that world wide concern about avian flu was concocted to gin up huge profits for companies that Rumsfeld and Cheney had ties to. I guess that means the WHO and UN were also on the take but no matter.

Ironically, the way Mercola got the book onto the best seller list was by getting people to preorder the book in massive enough quantities to qualify as a best seller. You might say that's a way of manufacturing a hoax to generate massive profits as well but perhaps that is too fine a distinction.

In fairness to Mercola, some of the products he peddles -- krill oil tablets -- have a modicum of clinical research to support claims that they help reduce cholesterol or alleviate PMS. But he hypes them endlessly, asserting without substantial evidence beyond smaller clinical studies that products such as coconut oil or krill oil can prevent infections, arthritis, etc. And he promotes a study claiming that neptune krill oil "alleviate symptoms caused by rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis, including joint pain, stiffness and functional impairment and significantly inhibit inflammation as shown by a decrease in C-Reactive Protein (CRP) -- a biomarker for inflammation." There is no such study in the medical literature...

Mercola has also been cited by the FDA on a couple of occasions for making medical claims for products without any evidence.

All the while he flogs drugs and vaccines as dangerous and deadly, using newspaper accounts for he source material.

Despite overwhelming evidence that mercury does not cause neurological damage he continues to whip up conspiracy sentiment that it does. And now, though scientific evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that aspartame is extremely safe for the vast majority of consumers, Mercola is about to come out with a book called "Sweet Deception" that -- of course -- will conclude that the government and corporations colludes to cover up the TRUTH about artificial sweeteners and the mind numbering and cancer causing effects they have.

And of course Mercola will have a NY Times best seller ready to be pre-sold.

Along with a sugar alternative that he will be hawking as well.

Sometimes coincidences are sweet too.  Read More & Comment...

The Cancer Kooks Respond

11/02/2006 10:14 AM |

Here is the official response to my article in the Daily News. It does not address the substance of my concerns: that Breast Cancer Action discourages women from obtaining mammograms and from using medicines that can actually treat breast cancer when detecting and instead urges women to wait till we identify and eliminate every evironmental toxin that in the judgement of Breast Cancer Action causes breast cancer to get well....

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/466935p-392909c.html
Cancer research
San Francisco: Robert Goldberg's Op-Ed, "End sick crusade against breast cancer research" (Oct. 29), was full of factual errors. It also mischaracterized Breast Cancer Action and our 16 years of supporting the voices of those affected by the disease. We encourage pink-ribbon consumers to get informed, provide women with the facts so they can make informed choices about their health and organize people to do something about breast cancer besides worry. We also call for research to focus on key unanswered questions about breast cancer. We value transparency and are highly regarded in the cancer world, Goldberg's diatribe notwithstanding.
Barbara A. Brenner Executive Director  Read More & Comment...

That Giant Sucking Sound

11/02/2006 08:57 AM |

Should Representative Pelosi become Speaker Pelosi we can almost certainly expect another round of absurdity surrounding the issue of drugs "from Canada." (Again and as always, please note the quotation marks.)

I had dinner last night with some Canadian policy wonks who are very concerned about the sanctity of their own legitimate supply of pharmaceuticals -- and rightly so. Legalized importation would create a giant sucking sound, the end result being the Great White North being drug-free -- and not in a good way.

There is, at present at least one private member's bill that I know of in Ottawa that would ban bulk exports of pharmaceuticals to the US (thus making it illegal for whole states -- like California and Illinois -- and programs -- like Part D -- to source their medicines supply from Canada). But it's an opposition member and not likely to go anywhere.

Prime Minister Harper had better wake up to the reality that, should Mrs. Pelosi's 100 Hour Reign of Terror become reality it won't be "Just say no to drugs," it'll be "Just say no drugs."

Oh Canada!  Read More & Comment...

All the rest is Commentary

11/02/2006 06:46 AM |

Here's a link to my commentary in Commentary on Peter Huber's article "Of Pills and Profits: In Defense of Big Pharma." (Peter's excellent article can be accessed via the Manhattan Institute website: http://www.manhattan-institute.org

Click below and please let me know your thoughts and comments.

http://www.cmpi.org/viewstddoccontent.asp?detailid=181&contenttypeid=2  Read More & Comment...

Stuck in Iraq (or Israel)

11/01/2006 04:14 PM |

I have a son in the Israeli army. He deferred attending George Washington U (with a scholarship) to do so. John Kerry's remark might have been targeted at Bush in his own mind but his reference point was a stereotype of why people join the military. His comments reflect the elitism and hollow intellect of many in his party. They impugn those who voluntarily perform military service because they believe that supporting a democracy in a war against terror is a just and noble purpose.

Similarly, I believe that Democrats -- until proven otherwise -- are a danger to medical innovation. (Not that they won't have the help of some Republicans). Quick to invoke the stereotype that any involvement with corporations stink, their very rhetoric demoralizes and discourages those who engage in research because they care and hope to cure. And their actions -- as I blogged on the exodus of NIH scientists -- based on that rhetoric has consequences.

Talk is not cheap. Talk imposes a heavy cost on those who actually seek a newer and brighter world. I thought politicians were supposed to empower those with such intentions instead of embarassing and attacking them.  Read More & Comment...

Paying for Democrat Part D Promises

11/01/2006 03:45 PM |

The biggest savings in the Democrats' plan would be a pledge to give the federal government the authority to negotiate lower drug prices for Medicare. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) have estimated that Medicare could save $190 billion over the next decade if the seniors' program adopted the price-negotiating model of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Let's translate: "The price negotiating model" is the one 40 percent of veterans want to LEAVE but can't, robs seniors of half the drugs now they choose from, forces them to buy from government run pharmacies, and denies them access to 90 percent of the 80 or more drugs the FDA gave priority approval to since 1997. Oh, and the whole process shortens the lives of seniors.

If seniors want many of the medicines they now depend on for their health, they will have to pay for them out of pocket to the tune of billions of dollars a year. And the loss of profits -- yes profits -- over ten years will hurt biotech firms and their investments, reducing the number of new medicines for fatal and degenerative illnesses by 50 percent.  Read More & Comment...

Who Built the AHRQ?

11/01/2006 10:56 AM |

Research, as the saying goes, is like a bikini. What it shows you is interesting – but what it conceals is essential.

Today’s case-in-point is a new study by AHRQ. The headline on the UPI wire is “Study: Brand-name drugs fuel cost increase."

The lede graph reads as follows:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- U.S. brand-name drug spending helped fuel a doubling of spending on outpatient prescription drugs from 1999 to 2003, a new study says. During those years, total consumer spending on drugs purchased outside of hospitals increased to $178 billion per year, according to a new report by Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Interesting numbers, big numbers – but without any real context. For example, what percentage of that spend is for medicines not previously available? What’s the breakdown between new and existing scripts? How does that increase corelate to reduced costs in, for example, hospitalization?

And what about improved patient outcomes?

Minus these important variables, all this new report will do is aid and abet the Evangelists of Evidence-Based Medicine and fuel the fire of those pundits and politicians for whom the crisis in American health care can be simplistically summed in the four words, “drugs are too expensive.”   Read More & Comment...

Peering into the Future

10/31/2006 03:50 PM |

I am preparing for my very first colonoscopy today. Scheduled for tomorrow morning at 10 am. I am looking at it as getting done to me what Democrats will do to seniors and medical progress if they win control of Congress and get a hold of Medicare.  Read More & Comment...

Non-Inferiority Complex

10/31/2006 11:20 AM |

Very important story by Steve Usdin in this week's edition of BioCentury.

The first paragraph sets the stage:

"FDA's rejection of Replidyne Inc.'s farapenem medoxomil has removed nearly all doubt the agency has resolved a long-running internal debate over the acceptability of non-inferiority studies to support efficacy in most community-acquired bacterial infections. But the absence of agency guidance forces developers to guess what protocols might work, a burden industry may not choose to take on despite the fact that the U.S. spends $8.5 billion on oral antibiotics in the U.S. annually."

And further ...

"The agency's action reflects arguments that the effectiveness of comparator antibiotics has not been established against placebo, making a non-inferiority result of doubtful value. And with the exception of CAP (community-acquired pneumonia), where the role an antibiotics isn't questioned and where FDA will still accept non-inferiority studies, the other indications are self-limiting, and thus the urgency to treat is said to be lower."

Many issues here, not the least of which are the ethical implications. As Usdin points out, "By requiring superiority trials in ABS (acute bacterial sinusitis) and AECB (acute exacerbation of chronic bronchitis), FDA has taken sides in a debate among clinicians, academic researchers, politicians and industry over whether it is necessary, ethical, or possible to conduct such trials."

On one side is Donald Poretz, Georgetown School of Medicine and a member of the FDA's Anti-Infective Drugs adcomm, "For years we thought is was unethical to do placebo-controlled trials in sinusitis, bronchitis, and otitis media, but now it seems it is ethical" ... because it isn't clear that antibiotics are helpful.

On the other side, James Hadley, University of Rochester Medical Center and past president of the American Academy of Otolaryngology, "It is very difficult in the U.S. under current law and regulations, and with IRBs that regulate clinical trials to offer a placebo to patients in view of an active disease process."

Show me the guidance!  Read More & Comment...

WHO? Us!

10/31/2006 10:29 AM |

While looking for a white paper on the WHO website I was surprised, excited, and pleased to see that their updated fact sheet on counterfeit drugs cites CMPI on the projected growth of global sales of fake medicines.

Here's the precise citation:

"The Centre for Medicine in the Public Interest, in the United States, predicts that counterfeit drug sales will reach US$75 globally in 2010, an increase of more than 90% from 2005."

So, now that we've given ourselves a nice pat on the back (and don't you love the quaint spelling of "Centre"), it's important to pass along the link for the WHO fact sheet. It's an important reference.

Have a look:

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs275/en/print.html  Read More & Comment...

NIH: Touched by an Angell

10/30/2006 09:08 PM |

Want to know what happens when the NIH toes the conflict free holier than thou line espoused by Marcia Angell, JAMA, NEJM.....

"Ethics rules send NIH scientists packing
By RITA BEAMISH, Associated Press WriterSat Oct 28, 6:06 PM ET
Nearly 40 percent of the scientists conducting hands-on research at the National Institutes of Health say they are looking for other jobs or are considering doing so to escape new ethics rules that have curtailed their opportunity to earn outside income.

Most scientists say the ethics crackdown is too severe, and nearly three-quarters of them believe it will hinder the government's ability to attract and keep medical researchers, according to a survey commissioned by the government's premier medical research agency.

The tightened rules were put in place last year after NIH found dozens of scientists had run afoul of existing restrictions on private consulting deals that had enriched them with money from drug and biotechnology companies.

Outside income from such companies is now banned. NIH also is placing greater restrictions and disclosure requirements on employees' financial holdings....."

What's so delicious about all this is Jim Greenwood, now chairman of BIO was one of the Congressman who beat up NIH on this COI issue. Now BIO is bemoaning the fact that NIH is losing the smartest people, particularly at NCI and testified before the NIH Blue Ribbon Panel on conflict of interest against the very limits that are sending scientists packing.

And if you think it's bad now, just wait till Dingell and Waxman get control of the relevant committees....Fewer scientists conducting less research in cooperation with scientists in academia and companies in such areas as stem cell research, Alzheimer's, cancer, etc. That means less investment in these critical areas and less progress. Way to go.  Read More & Comment...

MIT Happens

10/30/2006 08:22 AM |

When it comes to improving postmarketing surveillance there are a few acronyms to keep in mind: FDA, MIT, and AEGIS.

Note to publicity hungry politicians, pundits, and Prophets of the Precautionary Principle: One acronym not mentioned above (or in the important article below) is"CYA."

Have a look and see what real progress looks like:

Download file  Read More & Comment...

Breast Cancer Action's Halloween Scare Tactics Wont Work

10/29/2006 12:10 PM |

My oped today in the NY Dailly News nydailynews.com

End sick crusade against breast cancer research
By ROBERT GOLDBERG
Saturday, October 28th, 2006

Every October, as Breast Cancer Awareness Month rolls around, we wear pink ribbons and focus our attention on a terrible disease that takes the lives of some 40,000 American women every year. But this year, a group known as Breast Cancer Action has seized the stage - and, claiming to speak on behalf of breast cancer patients themselves, is making conspiratorial, offensive and irresponsible statements. They must be exposed as the fearmongers they are.
In a national media campaign that includes newspaper and TV ads, the upstart organization is advising women to "think before you pink" because - get this - they consider corporate donations to fight cancer research tainted by the profit motive. The group warns women against the breakthrough treatments corporate-funded research might yield.

And most alarmingly, the organization has advised against mammograms, apparently believing that they too are part of some corporate conspiracy. According to Barbara Brenner, executive director of the group, "benefit of routine mammograms for healthy premenopausal women is unproven."

This is a blatant lie that threatens women's lives. The scientific consensus is that routine mammography reduces the risk of dying of breast cancer in women 50 and older by up to 30%.

And in their crusade against corporate-funded research, what kind of breakthroughs is Breast Cancer Action targeting? Work by people like Northwestern University's Dr. Boris Pasche. By identifying women with variations of two specific genes that have been linked to an increased risk of cancer, Pasche and his colleagues are approaching a breakthrough that could successfully test for cancer risk in 30% of women. That could spare mothers needless trips to the doctor, exhausting rounds of chemotherapy and hospitalitzation.

In the perverse world of Breast Cancer Action, Dr. Pasche's research is suspect - because part of his financial support comes from the Avon Foundation. What's wrong with the Avon Foundation? Well, it seems the mere fact that it's linked to a profit-making company is cause enough for concern: "Breast cancer has become the poster child of corporate cause-related marketing campaigns, as companies try to boost their image and their profits by connecting themselves to a good cause," Breast Cancer Action complains on its Web site.

Perversely, this organization blames corporations for doing too much - and, at the very same time, not enough. As Brenner recently explained, "I understand that people want to do something, but if shopping could cure breast cancer, it would be cured by now." Brenner apparently isn't aware that over the last decade, thanks to countless researchers and millions of dollars in funding, the death rate from breast cancer has declined by 2.3% per year for all women. And it could go down much further, much faster, if research accelerates.

Breast Cancer's Action's twisted crusade would have corporations forget research funding and have women forgo potentially livesaving treatments. And what should replace research and science? A fight for a cleaner environment. In particular, the group insists there is irrefutable proof that chemicals called PCBs - pollutants that were in some manufactured goods before being banned in 1977 - cause breast cancer. There's no biological evidence to support such a link.

During Breast Cancer Awareness Month, this terrible disease is a formidable enough target for America to fight. We shouldn't also have to contend with the lies and hysteria being peddled by Breast Cancer Action.  Read More & Comment...

Drugwonks: We Report, We Decide

10/27/2006 08:48 AM |

Here are some of the more interesting headlines from this week's health and medical breakthrough news:

From Sciencenewsdaily.com

Elderly Men With Low Testosterone Levels More Likely To Fall
Low testosterone levels may be associated with a higher risk of falling in older men, according to a report in the October 23 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals....

Punchlines are welcome

And then there's this from that cutting edge healthcare system North of the border

Unique Bra Eases Women's Recovery From Heart Surgery
A national clinical trial led by a University of Calgary researcher has found that wearing a specialized compression bra significantly reduces women's breast pain following heart surgery.

So let's get this straight. HealthCanada will pay for this but not Plavix or Herceptin...

The autism aliens will not be convinced that mercury (the element, not the planet) does not cause that disease not matter how much scientific evidence is amassed and no matter how many death threats they send to scientists and public health officials...



Government rejects vaccine petition
By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer

A group called the Coalition for Mercury-free Drugs petitioned the Food and Drug Administration in 2004 seeking the restrictions on thimerosal, citing concerns that the preservative is linked to autism. In a reply dated Sept. 26 but made public only Tuesday, the FDA rejected the petition.

Federal health officials won't put new restrictions on the use of a mercury-based preservative in vaccines and other medicines, denying a petition that sought the limits because of health concerns.

"We're not accepting that answer," said Dr. Mark Geier, one of the petitioners.

Gee, what a surprise.


And speaking of not pleasing the paranoid, here's a headline that will make Steve Nissen, Curt Furberg and Ariana Huffington (who would ever think to see them in the same sentence?) miserable:

From Medical News Today

Popular ADHD Drug Safe And Effective For Pre-schoolers But Monitor Youngsters Closely For Side Effects, Researchers Caution

No heart problems guys. However, the study shows that in some kids side effects can include weight loss limits on height. It did not compare the impact of Ritalin with Strattera which is not a stimulant and does not have the same effect on appetite...  Read More & Comment...