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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

Editorial Note: This is a second post in the Change in Chicago Series looking at the Dolin trial and its verdict.  There will be two more in the series.  Being cross-examined in a legal case involving Pharma is rarely fun.  The lawyers will have done their homework in spades.  As one of them put it to me once: Dr Healy, I have read everything you have ever written. Looking … [Read more...] about Change in Chicago: Playing Go

Editorial: This series of posts on Stewart Dolin's death interrupts a series on how to bring about change . This is not inappropriate as law suits are one of the few ways to bring about change. This post in the series is by a Chicagoan - Johanna Ryan who has been tracking the case since it was filed first.  How a Chicago jury got it right On April 20, a federal jury in … [Read more...] about Change in Chicago: The Dolin Verdict

Editorial Note: This is the third part of a talk giving to the BNPA on February 22.  It follows on from Tweeting While Psychiatry Burns and Tweeting While Medicine Burns.  The final group of slides are HERE.  The talk you have just heard was first given in Toronto on Thursday November 30 2000 to mark the 75 anniversary of the University Dept and 150 anniversary of the Queen … [Read more...] about Burn Baby Burn

Editorial Note: This is part 2 of a 3 part lecture given on February 22 that began with Tweeting while Psychiatry Burns.  The text and slides continue from last week. The slides for this part are Here. The numbering continues from last week.  When his office was ransacked, Delay's world was turned upside down but psychiatry and doctors are still here - so we won, didn't … [Read more...] about Tweeting while Medicine Burns