The video, shot during the debate at the Royal Institution last month, shows the author of Bad Science and Bad Pharma debate the notion ‘Pharma is not getting its act together’ with the chief executive of the ABPI.
” … simply writing prescriptions is not what it means to be a doctor …”
Check out the list of drugs which were passed as safe for human consumption on the back of animal tests and the damage which they subsequently caused. Shocking!
Ben Goldacre puts the $600bn global pharmaceutical industry under the microscope
How drug companies mislead doctors and harm patients
Book Description
From amazon.co.uk : ” Ben Goldacre puts the $600bn global pharmaceutical industry under the microscope. What he reveals is a fascinating, terrifying mess.
Doctors and patients need good scientific evidence to make informed decisions. But instead, companies run bad trials on their own drugs, which distort and exaggerate the benefits by design. When these trials produce unflattering results, the data is simply buried. All of this is perfectly legal. In fact, even government regulators withhold vitally important data from the people who need it most. Doctors and patient groups have stood by too, and failed to protect us. Instead, they take money and favours, in a world so fractured that medics and nurses are now educated by the drugs industry. Patients are harmed in huge numbers.
Ben Goldacre is Britain’s finest writer on the science behind medicine, and ‘Bad Pharma’ is a clear and witty attack, showing exactly how the science has been distorted, how our systems have been broken, and how easy it would be to fix them. ”
More transparency on doctors’ lucrative industry ties?
” This month American regulators released rules to implement a so-called Sunshine law designed to improve transparency. France passed a similar law in 2011. Firms in Britain are planning voluntary disclosures. By 2015 more than 70% of drug sales will be in countries with such measures, according to Deloitte, a consultancy. ”
Read New efforts to reveal the ties between doctors and drug firms : Let the sunshine in, Mar 2nd 2013.
“This month, Johnson & Johnson is facing more than 10,000 lawsuits over an artificial hip that has been recalled because of a 40 percent failure rate within five years. Mistakes happen in medicine, but internal documents showed that executives had known of flaws with the device for some time, but had failed to make them public“
Lapse with Servier’s Mediator and PIP breast implants lead to new rules
” In another response to questionable oversight by drug regulators in Europe, the EU is looking at more stringent regulations for requiring drug manufacturers to recall products. ”
