David Healy

Some markers first. I am a committed believer in what may now be a last millennium concept - the medical model. I think antidepressants - the older tricyclics and ECT, not the more recent SSRI and other antidepressants - can save lives. I figure conflict of interest, crucially important in other areas of life, is of minor importance if not irrelevant in science. Although by … [Read more...] about The Junkies Take over the Asylum

Health Warning: Let me put down some markers before riffing on the Grassy Knoll theme. I am a committed believer in what may now be a last millenium concept - the medical model. I think antidepressants - the older tricyclics and ECT, not the more recent SSRI and other antidepressants - can save lives. I figure conflict of interest, crucially important in other areas of life, is … [Read more...] about Grassy Knoll or Slippery Slope?

Editorial Note: The image is of Science Media Centre funding from their website. This post links to Whats Going on Here, Honey I Shrunk the Shrinks, and to the two Prescription for Murder Posts on RxISK.   When AF's email came in first, it seemed far from private as he now claims. The choice of people seemed anything but accidental - especially SW.  It seemed likely SW would … [Read more...] about From the Grassy Knoll

Editorial Note:  This arrived out of the blue. The list of those copied in makes it look like its anything but spontaneous. Simon Wessely is recently vacated president of Royal College of Psychiatrists, and one of the Trustees of the Science Media Centre.  Paul Summergrad and Jeff Lieberman are former presidents of APA.  JL offered views on the Holmes case. There is no … [Read more...] about What’s going on Here?

  Editorial Note: Prior to the Panorama program Prescription for Murder tonight,  a flurry of experts denounced the scaremongering. This didn't just happen by accident.  The denunciation effort was also more intense than the pressure brought to bear on the original Panorama programs in 2002-2004. The change is in part down to the fact that Sense about Science, which … [Read more...] about Honey I Shrunk the Shrinks

Editorial Note: This post continues a sequence of posts about well-intentioned efforts to produce change that may have produced the wrong change - see Boomerang and Boomerang 2. The contraceptive pill, the Pill, came into our lives in 1960. Almost immediately there were reports of young women with deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolus and in some cases death from … [Read more...] about Baby Boomerang

In 1983, the year before Henry Waxman got the Waxman-Hatch Act on the Statute Books he got the Orphan Drugs Act passed.  Here's how it happened. In a wonderful 2016 self-publication, Abbey Meyer, a self-styled Connecticut housewife, outlines a story that began when her eldest son David was born in 1968.  The book is downloadable for free and is well written and … [Read more...] about Change in Chicago: Boomerang 2

When it comes to branded and generic drugs, the listing of key issues in this image misses a trick. The labels are identical. This lack of difference is a consequence of the 1984 Hatch-Waxman Act which after two decades of dispute staked out a boundary between generic and branded pharmaceutical companies, part of which in the case of their drugs required the generic … [Read more...] about Change in Chicago: Boomerang

Courts are not a place you can make jokes. I started off with a confident pitch: If you owe a bank a million pounds, you have a problem but if you owe the bank a billion ... I didn't get much further.  It felt like several GSK lawyers popped up, addressing the judge with words to the effect that he's talking about banking your honor, this is not his area of expertise. The … [Read more...] about Change in Chicago: Whose Problem?

Editorial Note: This is part three in the Change in Chicago series covering the Dolin trial and its implications.  Like part 1 it is written by  Johanna Ryan - The Dolin Verdict and Playing Go.  By twenty-first century American standards, Stu Dolin’s medical care was close to ideal.  That’s a hard idea to swallow, given what happened to him in the end, but it’s true.  The … [Read more...] about Change in Chicago:  Dr. Welby on the Witness Stand