U.S. Sen Grassley-Demanding transparency for Pharma funds paid to doctors, researchers, patient ‘advocacy’ groups

Senator Chuck Grassley has asked leading medical schools to describe their policies on ghostwriting as part of his continuing effort to shed light on financial ties between the pharmaceutical industry and medical professionals. “I’m interested in transparency, and academic institutions play an important role in establishing adequate and meaningful disclosure,” he said. Grassley also has conducted oversight and sought disclosure with physicians, continuing medical education and the patient advocacy community.

70% of psychiatrists in charge of adding new mental disorders to psych billing bible (DSM) have conflicts/ties to Pharma

Former editors of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) have publicly declared their concerns that the ongoing revision process of the influential publication has been cloaked in secrecy. Some critics of the DSM process express other concerns in addition to matters of transparency. It’s been pointed out that about 70% of current task force members have ties to the pharmaceutical industry, up about 14% from DSM-IV.

Psycho/Pharma invents ‘hypoactive sexual desire disorder’ to sell female ‘Viagra’ (antidepressant)

The disorder is a branch of “female sexual dysfunction,” a widely debated term that involves everything from an inability to reach orgasm to a lack of desire. Described as a “Viagra-like drug for women” by one of the drug trials’ principal investigators, the former antidepressant flibanserin is prompting an outcry from critics who say female sexual dysfunction is a disorder the pharmaceutical industry has conjured as an attempt to capitalize on women’s complex sexuality.

Let Them Eat Zoloft “Pfizer exists to serve the interests of their executives and shareholders-not the public”

Our elected officials persist in pretending that the drug companies can be their “partners” in health care reform, rather recognizing them as their adversaries. The rest of the industrialized world seems to have grasped the notion that it’s the government’s job to make sure the private health care industry doesn’t gouge the public. These governments do their job by imposing stiff regulation on these companies, far beyond anything that we will see in the current health reform here.

Failed antidepressant being repackaged and marketed as Viagra for women…(no joke)

Flibanserin failed its trials as an anti-depressant, but when its maker, Boehringer, asked test subjects to return the unused portion, patients were reluctant. Boehringer funded a study at the University of North Carolina, which now reports that Flibanserin increases a woman’s sex drive. A lot of the media is touting this as “female Viagra,” but it’s really no such thing.

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