howard brody

On the Hooked: Ethics, Medicine and Pharma blog, Dr Howard Brody further analyzed the case of the soft-hearted prosecutors, which we discussed here.  He suggested that the systematically increasing leniency that the US gov

We have posted quite a bit about ghost-written articles, that is, ostensibly scholarly articles appearing in medical and health care journals with apparently prominent authors that were really written mainly by medical writers hired by companies to market particular products, usually drugs.  Now we hear of a case of a ghost-written book.  Our fellow bloggers have covered this well.  See posts here and

The Council of Medical Specialty Societies got some good press for its new code of ethics regarding medical associations' interaction with industry.  Two of the best skeptical bloggers about health care dissected the code, suggesting it will not be as tough as it was cracked up to be.  See these posts by Dr Daniel Carlat on the Carlat Psychiatry Blog and by Dr Howard Brody on the

There has been considerable coverage of the remarkable hearings by the US Senate Special Committee on Aging on industry funded continuing medical education (CME).

The proceedings at the first meeting of the benignly titled Association of Clinical Researchers and Educators (ACRE) was chronicled on the Carlat Psychiatry Blog here, and on Postscript, the Prescription Project blog here.

On the Hooked: Ethics, Medicine and Pharma blog, Dr Howard Brody dissected a campaign to redirect comparative effectiveness research by making it responsible to a new governing board that would include "insurance" and "industry" members.

On the GoozNews blog, Merrill Goozner dissects the recent decision by the US Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to make more lenient the criteria it uses to decide which off-label anti-cancer drugs it will pay for.

Now any drug rated favorably in at least one of several drug compendia will be approved.

We previously discussed an article by Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee in Slate The article discussed a show broadcast on many US National Public Radio (NPR) stations which portrayed a rather benign view of the side-effects of anti-depressant medications.

Not revealed to listeners was that the show was partially funded by a company that manufacturers such medication, and all the participants in the show had some financial relationships with such companies.

On the Hooked: Ethics, Medicine and Pharma blog, Dr Howard Brody discusses the recent case of toxic heparin (see our most recent post here) in terms of "regulatory capture" of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

On the Hooked: Ethics, Medicine and Pharma blog, Dr Howard Brody expanded his focus a bit to include medical device companies.

He posted about the ongoing investigations of orthopedic surgeons' financial relationships to the manufacturers of prosthetic joints.