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In this two part article, a journalist based in Washington DC explores the brewing conflicts at one of the world's leading medical campuses as it joins the wider global debate [...]

Summary points Medical reform groups and student associations are calling for disentanglement from pharmaceutical companies and independent education and sources of information The University of California in San Francisco is [...]

Senior members of the FDA's advisory committee warn of more deaths if alosetron (Lotronex) is relaunched, as a former insider speaks out about the US regulator's close relationship with Big [...]

The industry works to develop drugs, not diseases EDITOR--It is true that the pharmaceutical industry, with others, is involved in sponsoring the definition of diseases, as suggested by Moynihan et [...]

A lot of money can be made from healthy people who believe they are sick. Pharmaceutical companies sponsor diseases and promote them to prescribers and consumers. Ray Moynihan, Iona Heath, [...]

Summary points The Cochrane Collaboration is divided over drug Company sponsorship of systematic reviews Supporters say Cochrane needs commercial Support and could benefit from company Perspectives Opponents say sponsorship will [...]

Is a new disorder being identified to meet unmet needs or to build markets for new medications? Summary points Researchers with close ties to drug companies are defining and classifying [...]

Most doctors believe medicine to be a force for good. Why else would they have become doctors? Yet while all know medicine's power to harm individual patients and whole populations, [...]

Spending on drugs in the United States and Canada rose 11% last year, according to new figures released last week by a leading market analyst firm, Intercontinental Marketing Services (IMS). [...]

The drug manufacturer Lilly has been forced to drop one of the disorders it had previously fisted for its antidepressant drug fluoxetine (Prozac), following a finding by the European drug [...]

A major pharmaceutical company has sought to influence state government officials with trips, perks, lavish meals, and other payments, says an investigator from the Pennsylvania Office of Inspector General. Investigator [...]

The leadership of the international Cochrane Collaboration failed to make a decision on drug company sponsorship at last week's annual conference in Barcelona, opting instead for a complex consultation with [...]

The US Food and Drug Administration will continue to evaluate the safety of silicone breast implants before making a decision on reapproval, despite a recent recommendation from its advisers. After [...]

A bill before the US Congress calls on health authorities to investigate whether expensive new drugs offer value for money, by comparing their risks and benefits with other treatments and [...]

The organisers of Australia's 'healthy bones week' have come under fire for making exaggerated and misleading claims about the dangers of osteoporosis--the loss of bone density that raises the risk [...]

The marketing of pharmacogenetic tests may be moving much faster than the underlying medical science, warns a study published this week. 'There is widespread recognition that pharmacogenetics may have been [...]

Katherine Greider Public Affairs, $14, pp 189 ISBN 1 58648 185 1 Rating *** The Big Fix opens with feisty 77 year old Melva McCuddy from Ohio struggling to find [...]

The head of the main medical education accrediting body in the United States says that many commercially sponsored educational events could be run at a fraction of their cost, without [...]

Pharmaceutical giant Wyeth has admitted that it secretly briefed a number of medical societies about the results of a study into hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and dementia before they were [...]

In the field of medicine, finding the line between education and promotion is often a daunting task, as industry sponsored events and materials dominate so many of doctors' postgraduate learning [...]

An external advisory panel to the US Food and Drug Administration last week rejected calls from FDA safety experts to withdraw a drug for rheumatoid arthritis from the market. The [...]

The panel that settles disputes over internet domain names has found that an industry backed 'consumer' group in the United States deliberately created bogus websites to hijack internet traffic from [...]

Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline is facing a growing backlash over its decision to cut supplies to Canadian pharmacies selling cheap drugs into the United States. In recent years elderly Americans have [...]

The giant US seniors group AARP, which has 35 million members aged over 50, has accused the pharmaceutical industry of funding 'front' groups that purport to represent older Americans but [...]

Plans to start vaccinating half a million US healthcare workers against smallpox as early as this week are facing growing resistance, as some hospitals, unions, and professional bodies question the [...]

A public relations company with clients in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry has launched a global campaign to 'counter' a recent BMJ article on 'female sexual dysfunction' that detailed drug [...]

Sildenafil (Viagra), which is approved to treat erectile dysfunction, could now be taken daily to prevent it, a high profile professor of urology has advised. Professor Irwin Goldstein of Boston [...]

Staff at the Food and Drug Administration's Office of Drug Safety wanted the United States to consider following the United Kingdom's policy of reducing the public's ease of access to [...]

Advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration are warning of more serious injuries and drug related deaths if alosetron (Lotronex)--a drug for bowel disorders manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline--returns to the [...]

Tobacco giant Philip Morris pressured at least two pharmaceutical manufacturers to water down antismoking messages in marketing campaigns for nicotine chewing gum and nicotine patches. This is one of the [...]

United States professional football sensation Ricky Williams last week sparked a blaze of publicity when he revealed that he had social anxiety disorder and was benefiting from both therapy and [...]

Working round the clock from her home office in New Jersey, Amy Doner Schachtel is at the cutting edge of medical research--she helps drug companies find celebrities to help expand [...]

Lynn Payer John Wiley & Sons, $12.95, pp 292 ISBN 0 471 00737 4 This title is now only available direct from the USA. See www.wiley.com Rating: **** Lynn Payer's [...]

A senior pharmaceutical company executive says estimates of the prevalence of diseases are often exaggerated. Using the example of his company's promotion of 'social phobia,' Fred Nadjarian, managing director of [...]