My number two does not look like a number two. I don’t know what to call it. Is there a number three?” So begins an ad in an aggressive AbbVie campaign to sell the disease of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI) in order to sell AbbVie’s drug for it. EPI is characterized by frequent diarrhea, gas, bloating and stomach pain says the campaign whose pay off line is “Don’t Keep a Lid on It.” (Get it?) Creon, AbbVie’s drug to treat the hitherto almost unknown disease of EPI is priced at over $500 a prescription. Continue reading →
Recently, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) revealed a small but significant risk of breast cancer with regular hormonal birth control pills. The longer women take them, the higher the risk. Yet, says the FDA about one popular hormone-based birth control pill, “Most studies suggest that the use of oral contraceptives is not associated with an overall increase in the risk of developing breast cancer.” Continue reading →
For years I have reported that the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is widely considered a Pharma front group, pushing psychiatric drugs not non-drug treatment to prevent suicide. A recent AFSP annual report acknowledges receiving money from Sunovion, Janssen, Forest, Pfizer and Otsuka America Pharmaceuticals and AFSP appointed former Forest executive and JED Foundation founder Phil Satow to its Project 2025 Advisory Committee. Continue reading →
Do you overeat? Did your boyfriend just break up with you? Does no one return your emails? Do you fall asleep at night and wake up in the morning? If so, you may be suffering from mental illness! Mental illness is a highly stigmatized, life-long condition, says Pharma, that millions do not even realize they have and only a pharmaceutical drug can fix. Luckily there are advocacy groups like Glenn Close’s Bring Change to Mind and the Pharma-funded front groups, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) to help you. Continue reading →
After he served 8 years of a 27-year sentence for money laundering, kosher meatpacking executive Sholom Rubashkin had his sentence commuted. Continue reading →
The sicker you get, the richer they become.
The campaigns are everywhere. On ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX, Animal Planet, the Game Show Network and Syfy. In People, Popular Mechanics and Better Homes and Gardens magazines. On the radio and along subway lines. If you were born between 1945 and 1965, you could have hep C, screams Gilead Sciences, which makes the hep C drug Harvoni. Continue reading →
Many are baffled why the suicide rate in the United States is rising despite antidepressant use being at an all time high. Suicide has risen to 38,000 a year, says USA Today, after falling in the 1990s despite almost a quarter of the population in some age groups taking antidepressants and use of some psychiatric drugs growing by 700% in the military. Shouldn’t suicides be going down? Continue reading →
In 2009, CBS news reported that drugmakers had spent hundreds of millions of dollars to raise awareness of fibromyalgia which it called, “a murky illness, helping boost sales of pills recently approved as treatments and drowning out unresolved questions—including whether it’s a real disease at all.” Eli Lilly and Pfizer had donated more than $6 million to “nonprofit groups for medical conferences and educational campaigns,” reported CBS. While fibromyalgia, like most diseases given such “awareness” certainly exists, the timing and estimation of how many people “suffer” was totally orchestrated by Pharma and its many patient front groups. Continue reading →
Next month, hundreds across the country will participate in “Out of the Darkness” walks to raise awareness about suicide and to support the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). Continue reading →
A couple of rotten eggs finally got their due. Well, sort of. Continue reading →
What if you didn’t grow up amid America’s gun culture, but are still a member of the race which suffers the most from U.S gun violence? As Gary Younge, a black reporter who grew up in England demonstrates in a moving new book titled, “Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives,” it might cause you to ask hard questions other reporters duck. Continue reading →
Long before the Internet and direct-to-consumer advertising, the medical profession tried to reassure people about their health concerns. Remember “take two aspirins and call me in the morning”? Continue reading →
After the first mad cow, things got worse.
US cattlemen and agriculture professionals are ecstatic over China’s willingness to accept US beef imports for the first time in 13 years. Yet few reports articulate why the beef ban occurred in the first place. Continue reading →
It is estimated that up to 66 percent of U.S. women and 45 percent of U.S. men live with chronic pain from spinal disorders like disc disease, pinched nerves and neck pain, to complex regional pain syndromes, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, and headaches. Low back pain alone affects eight out of 10 people worldwide and is the fifth most common reason people visit a doctor. Continue reading →
Thanks to drug safety scandals and new methods of marketing, the bloom had fallen off the Pharma reps’ roses.
More than a decade ago, the job of pharmaceutical rep was enviable. Direct-to-consumer advertising pre-sold many drugs so doctors already knew about them. Medical offices welcomed the reps who were usually physically attractive and brought lunch. In fact, reps sometimes had their own reception rooms in medical offices and seemed to see doctors before waiting patients. Continue reading →
I recently interviewed Lawrence Golbom, author of ‘Not Safe As Prescribed.’ Continue reading →
Few are aware of these Wildlife Services programs
Posted on February 1, 2018 by Martha Rosenberg
The goldfish and koi started surrendering to the surface around Halloween. Bass, crappie, catfish and the distinctive sunfish/bluegill hybrids that inhabited the pond for 140 years followed. Soon the 5.2 acre South Pond in Chicago’s Lincoln Park sported a slick of shiny, golden and still moving fish, kind of like a macabre woman’s drink. Continue reading →