Drugs/Medical Archive

Zyprexa – Making Lemonade out of Lemons

February 1st, 2010. By LucyC

You may recall a study that hit the news last October, published in JAMA, on the use of four new generation antipsychotics—Zyprexa, Risperdal, Abilify and Seroquel—used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar I disorder in adults and adolescents. Long story short—it was not a good news story for the kids on these drugs, and most especially kids on Zyprexa.

Why not? Weight gain, increases in triglyceride levels and associated risks for diabetes and cardiovascular disease. 

The average weight gain over the 12 week study period was the highest for Zyprexa—17 pounds. You’d be hard pressed to gain that kind of weight sport-eating your way through the holidays… 

Suffice to say an editorial in JAMA called the study results “timely and sobering,” suggesting that the new generation of antipsychotics are not all they’re cracked up to be. “These results challenge the widespread use of atypical antipsychotic medications in youth,” University of Washington, Seattle child psychiatrists Christopher K. Varley and Jon McClellan wrote. 

Well, maybe not. On January 29^th, nearly three months after the study was published, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning to doctors regarding prescribing information for Zyprexa, but it’s not exactly strong…here’s part of the FDA Safety warning: 

“Section 1, Indications and Usage: When deciding among the alternative treatments available for adolescents, Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Eli Lilly, Zyprexa
Posted in Drugs/Medical | 2 Comments »

NSF Registry Aims to Understand Disease

January 19th, 2010. By AbiK

When news first broke about the possible link between Nephrogenic Systemic Fibrosis (NSF) and gadolinium-based contrast agents used in MRIs, it was certainly alarming. But not much was known about it aside from the alleged correlation.

So after the first cases of NSF were identified, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) worked with doctors from the University of California in San Francisco to investigate the disorder. The work has since moved to Yale University where Dr. Shawn Cowper is in charge of confirming and investigating new cases of NSF.

The NSF Registry—the official project name for the work Dr. Cowper is heading up—aims to collect and organize information about NSF patients globally. The information is collected in order to help identify factors that may be related to or causative of NSF. Additionally, the NSF Registry will collect information on NSF treatments—successes and failures—in order to determine effective therapies and to help design future medication/therapy trials.

Anyone who has been afflicted with NSF or NFD should have their doctor contact Dr. Cowper at . For more information, visit the NSF Registry website: icnfdr.org.

Tags: Gadolinium, MRI Health Risks, NSF Registry
Posted in Drugs/Medical | No Comments »

Kristen Parker Sentenced for Fentanyl Theft

January 18th, 2010. By LucyC

About a year ago a woman named Kristen Diane Parker, a surgery tech who worked in hospitals the Denver area, made the news, including on LawyersAndSettlements.com. I wrote a couple of short pieces about her. She was addicted—maybe still is—to Fentanyl.

Also known as Duragesic, Fentanyl is a prescription pain medication—quite a strong one—and quite an addictive one by all accounts. Kristen Parker was so addicted to the stuff that she would steal syringes from hospital surgery carts where she worked—syringes that were filled with Fentanyl—and inject herself. She would then fill the used syringes with saline and replace them. Just in case this isn’t crystal clear—post-operative patients were being administered saline in used syringes instead of their prescribed pain medication.  

Ah, but it gets worse. Parker ended up infecting some 36 people with hepatitis C, a currently incurable viral infection which leads to chronic liver inflammation, and in some cases liver cancer. Parker, who shared needles when injecting heroine, is hepatitis C positive—something she claims she didn’t know when she was fixing her needles.

Thankfully, Ms. Parker got careless, and she got caught. No surprise there, given the state she must Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Fentanyl, Kristen Parker
Posted in Drugs/Medical | 6 Comments »

WHO Fights Back Over “Fake Pandemic” Accusations

January 18th, 2010. By janem

The World Health Organization (WHO) is almost in fisticuffs over recent accusations that it exaggerated the H1N1 threat. “The world is going through a real pandemic,” said Dr. Fukuda, the WHO’s special adviser on pandemic influenza. “The description of it as fake is both wrong and irresponsible.”

On January 15th the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) released the latest statistics–  based on two nationwide telephone surveys–about  H1N1 fatalities, infection rates and inoculations covering the first eight months of the “pandemic” from April through mid-December. According to the surveys, about 55 million people contacted the infectious virus, nearly 246,000 needed hospitalization and around 11,160 died from the flu.

Do these statistics sound like a pandemic? CDC estimated that about 36,000 people died of seasonal flu-related causes each year during the 1990s in the US. So why don’t we have a pandemic alert every year?  It makes you wonder: Is the CDC and WHO collaborating with big pharma companies like Glaxo Smith Kline? Surely GSK can afford to bank roll them with the profits they are making from their H1N1 vaccine.

Meanwhile, health officials and hospitals nationwide report that the outbreak has waned.

For instance, Des Moines’ main hospitals are loosening their visitor policies and Tarrant County, Texas is closing six locations that have been administering the H1N1 vaccine because their health department says the number of people wanting the vaccine had dropped off.

At the end of January, the Council of Europe will be debating “Faked Pandemics: a threat to health”, and WHO officials have been asked to testify. Dr. Fukuda has denied that the WHO was influenced by the pharma industry in declaring a pandemic.

Health officials warn that a third wave of H1N1 is coming. If it does, the WHO is off the hook. If it doesn’t hit, I guess they’ve got a lot of explaining to do.

Tags: fake pandemic, H1N1, H1N1 flu, H1N1 Vaccine, pandemic
Posted in Drugs/Medical | 2 Comments »

H1N1 Vaccine-Gate

January 13th, 2010. By janem

“It’s one of the greatest medical scandals of the century” said Wolfgang Wodarg, head of health at the Council of Europe, and it’s likely the costliest.  In France alone, health officials spent 1.25 billion dollars on 94 million doses of the H1N1 vaccine, but only 5 million has been used. Now, like other countries such as the UK and Germany, it is trying to sell off the supply. But the epidemic has already spiked so who wants to buy?

What I find most incredulous is how governments have been so freakin’ gullible! How could they get sucked in by big pharma companies such as Glaxo Smith Kline, Sanofi and Baxter—with their obvious financial interests at stake? Even Obama got sucked in. In October 2009, our president called H1N1 a national emergency and said there is  “rapid increase in illness from H1N1…the pandemic continues to evolve and rise rapidly…” But the numbers didn’t add up—you don’t call it a pandemic without doing some research.

These drug companies told everyone initially that two vaccines were needed, but later it was discovered that one shot is enough. So they doubled their money. And just to be on the safe side, that clever Glaxo Smith Kline sold governments a “no return” policy.

Health officials were led to believe that thousands upon thousands of people would die from H1N1 and in total, $20 billion was spent on the vaccine. But so far just 13,000 worldwide have died from the virus—definitely not the killer flu predicted. Besides, 250,000 people die of seasonal flu each year and Wodarg emphasizes this fact: “It’s [H1N1] just a normal kind of flu,” he said. “It does not cause a tenth of deaths caused by the classic seasonal flu.”

Some people (and not just conspiracy theorists) believe the swine flu outbreak was a ‘false pandemic’ driven by drug companies that stood to make billions of dollars from a worldwide scam. Wodarg is one of them, and he is backed by Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: H1N1, H1N1 flu, H1N1 Vaccine
Posted in Drugs/Medical | 1 Comment »