New study finds link between TV ads and higher drug prices
We've got family coming in for Thanksgiving and I have much to do. So this week, I'd just like to point my faithful readers to three items of interest:1. Gary Schwitzer's great blog, which goes a long way to explaining why there was such an unholy ruckus about the new mammography guidelines issued last week despite the fact that the US Preventative Task Force's recommendations were based on the

A solution to the problem of scientific misconduct?
Talk about synergy. Just a few days ago, my health and science journalism class at Brandeis was discussing ethics in science, using as a template an old case example involving scientific fraud in the University of Michigan laboratory then headed by Dr. Francis Collins. Back in 1996, Collins, who is now director of the National Institute of Health (NIH), investigated the allegations as soon as he

Was the Fort Hood shooter taking antidepressants?
In the days since the Fort Hood shooting, I have wondered whether the gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was taking antidepressants in the weeks or months before he sprayed a medical clinic with bullets, killing 13 people. I hesitated to raise that question since there is at present no evidence Hasan was on SSRI antidepressants, which have been linked to violent and suicidal actions, as I've

Amgen and Aranesp: One more example of how drug companies make huge profits by misleading consumers
Just in case you didn't read the Saturday papers, let me call your attention to this article in The Boston Globe about the chickens coming home to roost for Amgen, the California biotech that makes Aranesp, an anti-anemia drug for people with kidney disease and type 2 diabetes. The Globe's Elizabeth Cooney reports on a study published online in the New England Journal of Medicine finding that

Is there a link between antidepressants and violence?
The recent murder suicide of an elderly couple in Newton, Massachusetts brought to mind a horrific story I heard while attending the ICSSP conference in Syracuse a few weeks ago. In 2006, David Crespi, a former banking executive with no criminal record or history of violence, killed his twin five-year-old daughters, stabbing them multiple times with a kitchen knife. He then called the police and