A federal appeals court has ruled that pharmaceutical sales staff can’t be convicted for promoting drugs for “off label” uses, as long as those uses are otherwise legal.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in New York issued the decision in the case of Alfred Caronia, a pharmaceutical sales representative convicted in 2008 of illegally promoting the narcolepsy medication Xyrem for unapproved uses. In his appeal, Bloomberg reports, Caronia contended that the ...
continue reading...An article in the Washington Post says major medical journals routinely print studies over which pharmaceutical companies can exert major influence. That company influence “has become a common practice that reflects the growing role of industry money in research,” the article says.
As an example, the Washington Post cites a 17-page article in the New England Journal of Medicine that rated GlaxoSmithKline’s Avandia the best of three diabetes drugs. GlaxoSmithKline funded the trial that formed the basis of the article, and ...
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A study suggests that patients taking the blood thinner warfarin may be at greater risk for major bleeding if they also take a class of antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs.
A report in U.S. News and World Report says researchers found a 60 percent higher risk of major hemorrhage in patients that were taking SSRIs and warfarin, versus those who weren’t taking an SSRI.
Notably, the researchers found no ...
continue reading...Researchers are recommending that pregnant women with past episodes of mild to moderate depression stay away from a class of antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.
An article in the Boston Globe cites a review of more than 100 studies that researchers from Boston IVF and Tufts University School of Medicine published in the journal Human Reproduction. According to the story, the researchers concluded that “there is no evidence of improved ...
continue reading...Babies born to mothers who took antidepressants classified as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors show delayed speech development, according to a study cited in Medpage Today.
Researchers from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver published their findings in PNAS Early Edition.
They found that infants whose mothers had untreated clinical depression during pregnancy showed delayed speech development, characterized by an inability to discriminate non-native language at 6 months. At 10 months, however, ...
continue reading...The American Psychological Association has produced new videos urging people to consider trying psychotherapy before going on antidepressants.
A CBS News report about the videos says that approximately one out of 10 Americans reports having depression. U.S. doctors prescribed $9.9 billion worth of antidepressants in 2009, which represents a 3 percent increase from 2008.
Yet one-third of Americans taking one antidepressant medication and less than one-half of those taking multiple antidepressants have ...
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