The British Medical Journal

Naming Names: Is There an (Unbiased) Doctor in the House?

Articles — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:29:00 -0400

Journalists often forget that conflicts of interest may bias the opinions of their expert sources. Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee explain how, in an attempt to disentangle commercial messages from science, they have compiled a list of nearly 100 independent medical experts to whom reporters can turn.

Ho hum, another medical scandal in the news. Earlier this month US Senator Chuck Grassley announced his intention to investigate Alan Schatzberg, chairman of the psychiatry department at Stanford University and the incoming president of the American Psychiatric Association, about his multimillion dollar interest in Corcept Therapeutics, a company that is seeking to market a drug that Dr Schatzberg is researching with federal… more

Knowing Me, Knowing You

Ron Tang — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 02:09:00 -0400

Do you want to Google your genes or peer into your future risks of heart disease or cancer? Now you can, according to direct to consumer testing companies. Gone are the days when genetic testing was limited to doctors ordering tests for rare, but prognostically potent, single gene disorders such as Huntington’s disease, Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy, or cystic fibrosis. Thanks to an explosion of newly discovered single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs (pronounced snips), companies are marketing genetic tests for traits ranging from the mundane -- eye colour and wet ear wax -- to serious conditions such as Crohn’s disease and… more

An Untold Story?

Ron Tang — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

New generation antidepressants aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. That seems to be the central message in the meta-analysis published this week by Irving Kirsch and colleagues in PLoS Medicine,[1] and it was this message that made the headlines. Kirsch’s conclusion follows on the heels of similar studies showing that statins are useful in only a small subset of patients taking the drugs[2] and earlier studies finding that the safety and performance of cyclo-oxygenase-2 (COX 2) inhibitors were worse than they first seemed.[3] All of which further reinforces previous criticisms that regulators in the United Kingdom and the United… more