This is the third in the Dance series tackling the crisis in healthcare. Previous parts were Dancing as fast as we can and Dance to the Music of Time. A further step taken in 1962 made it possible to shape the raw material from clinical trials into the perfect product. This development hinged on the strategy chosen to reward pharmaceutical companies. In 1962, the options were … [Read more...] about Dancing In The Dark: How patents make drugs the perfect objects of desire
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Dance to the Music of Time: How clinical trials help pharma invent data
This is the second in the Dance series tackling the crisis in healthcare. Part one was Dancing as fast as we can. Every product is built from a raw material. The raw material puts constraints on a product developer. There may be difficulties fashioning the product from the material, or the material may be costly or scarce. There is the delicate matter of how the mark-up from … [Read more...] about Dance to the Music of Time: How clinical trials help pharma invent data
Dancing as fast as we can: The crisis in healthcare
This is the first of 6 Dance posts that cover the role of pharmaceuticals in the current healthcare crisis. It is based on Pharmageddon. In succeeding posts the role of clinical trials, patents, and prescription only status will be covered. The first five posts have been renamed from BarMittzva Romba; this combination of Bar(ack) and Mitt seems to have been too clever for its … [Read more...] about Dancing as fast as we can: The crisis in healthcare
The Tree Must Go
Crusoe had a chance to view the new facility - the brainchild of one of the world’s wealthiest men, who had made his name in a race to sequence the genetic code. He had famously used his own DNA in the process. He later went on to create synthetic life and it was from synthetic biology He made his fortune. The inspiration to recreate Eden came from watching an old movie, The … [Read more...] about The Tree Must Go
The Oedipus Effect
Crusoe was called to see the woman. It all began she said when on the way home after a successful board meeting, taking shelter from a sudden downpour, he stepped into an empty building. There he saw something. Perhaps it was the nutmeg with the meal or the mushrooms that did it. A bunch of children, he said, sitting looking at a stockmarket ticker tape. Many of them appeared … [Read more...] about The Oedipus Effect
Suffer The Little Children
This post was written by Dr Irene Campbell-Taylor, a former Clinical Neuroscientist and Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. This phrase means, of course, to allow the little children but today I want to write about children who are suffering in the other sense. The word “patient” comes from the Latin patire, to suffer or to endure. The children I … [Read more...] about Suffer The Little Children
Krystallized
BBC Radio Four's Today program ran a piece on August 2 in response to an NHS report showing a startling 500% rise in prescriptions for antidepressants since the advent of SSRIs and a 9% rise last year. Close to 47m prescriptions were dispensed in the NHS in 2011 for anti-depressants and sleeping pills. There has been a rise year on year for the last two … [Read more...] about Krystallized
The Hidden Gorilla
Three weeks ago What would Batman do Now covered the issue of suicide in the military – an issue that had Batman missing in action, and the Joker suffering the adverse effects of psychotropic drugs. Then along came James Holmes to the premiere of Dark Knight Rises in Aurora. Most drugs that can cause suicide, including the antidepressants, mood-stabilizers, antipsychotics, … [Read more...] about The Hidden Gorilla
One Script To Rule Them All
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish portrayed doctors in a rather flattering light – the victims of a tragedy. They were portrayed as losing out in a Faustian bargain when they failed to realize the hazards in making all new drugs available on prescription only. The bargain offered them a chance to entrench themselves inescapably in healthcare as the only legal source of all … [Read more...] about One Script To Rule Them All
There’s Something About Mary
A paper looking at antidepressants and birth defects in Denmark has just appeared. Anyone can download it and read for themselves (Jimenez-Solem et al 2012). It's worth reading. The published data demonstrate an increased rate of major birth defects on SSRIs which fits what almost all other studies have found. But this study also finds that women who have stopped their SSRI … [Read more...] about There’s Something About Mary