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Scientific American story on hidden harm of AD and suckatude of FDA


[MT...]

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I came upon this article from the bio/psych/soc listserve today. It talks about how harmful effects aren't documented properly on a variety of drugs, especially AD. I'm sure that didn't happen with benzos though, they're fine :laugh:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-hidden-harm-of-antidepressants/

 

Here's a taste:

 

Because of the selective reporting of negative outcomes in journal articles, the researchers in the most recent BMJ study turned to clinical trial reports, which include more detailed information about the trials. They discovered that some of most the useful information was in individual patient listings buried in the appendices. For example, they uncovered suicide attempts that were passed off as “emotional liability” or “worsening depression” in the report itself. This information, however, was only available for 32 out of the 70 trials. “We found that a lot of the appendices were often only available upon request to the authorities, and the authorities had never requested them,” says Tarang Sharma, a PhD student at Cochrane and lead author of the study. “I’m actually kind of scared about how bad the actual situation would be if we had the complete data.”

 

Yep.

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Thanks so much for this, MTfan!  :thumbsup:

 

"It was only after three years, multiple requests and complaints to the European Ombudsman, an individual elected by the European Parliament to investigate claims against European Union institutions, that the research team finally received the documents. Following this case the EMA declared that it would widen public access to clinical trial–related documents. According to Gøtzsche, although they were able obtain this breakthrough in Europe in 2010 this has yet to happen in the U.S. “What America really needs is an ombudsman,” he says."

 

I agree - the U.S. needs an ombudsman. The U.S. is out of control pharmaceutically speaking.

 

Now if only that botched Xanax clinical trial, that Robert Whitaker and Lisa Cosgrove uncovered, would come to light. That would certainly help!!

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