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Healthy Skepticism Updates

Update 2007-03-19

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CONTENTS
New web server
GSK internal documents
Healthy Skepticism International News
Recent publications


NEW WEB SERVER
We have moved our website to a new server but the address remains:
www.healthyskepticism.org If you have experienced technical problems
with our website, we apologize. We are trying to do a lot with
limited resources. We hope there will be less technical problems from
now on.


GSK INTERNAL DOCUMENTS
Jon Jureidini (HS Chair), Leemon McHenry (consultant to the Baum
Hedlund law firm) and Peter Mansfield (HS Director) have been
analyzing internal documents from GlaxoSmithKline regarding Study 329
of paroxetine for depressed adolescents. Our analysis has been
submitted to a medical journal. Meanwhile the documents and a list of
all known trials of newer antidepressants for depressed children and
adolescents are available at:
[obsolete URL deleted]


HEALTHY SKEPTICISM INTERNATIONAL NEWS
We are still catching up on posting Healthy Skepticism International
News issues. Issues dated December 2006 and January 2007 have now
been posted.

December 2006 Vol 24 No 12
What everyone needs to know about drug marketing. Part 1: Products.
By: Peter R Mansfield
This is first part of a 3 part article. This part focuses on
pharmaceutical products.

Go to: www.healthyskepticism.org//global/news/issue/hsin06-12

January 2007 Vol 25 No 1
What everyone needs to know about drug marketing. Part 2: Prices
By: Peter R Mansfield
This part will be easier to understand if you have read the first
part first.

Go to: www.healthyskepticism.org/global/news/issue/hsin07-01


RECENT PUBLICATIONS
If you know of any publications relevant to drug promotion that are
not listed in our web library please inform: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Publications by Healthy Skepticism Members

Mansfield PR, Hoffman JR, Lexchin J.
Educating Health Professionals about Drug and Device Promotion:
Authors' Reply.
PLoS Med. 2007 Feb 27;4(2):e88
http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0040088

Harvey K.
Medicines Australia latest Code of Conduct Report
AusPharmList 2007 Feb 16
http://auspharmlist.net.au/post.php?postid=9292

Lexchin J.
A comparison of new drug availability in Canada and the United States
and potential therapeutic implications of differences.
Health Policy 2006 Dec;79(2-3):214-20
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0168-8510(06)00003-0

Mansfield PR.
Doctors as lapdogs to drug firms: Independence may be most cost
effective way to improve health care.
BMJ 2006 Nov 25;333(7578):1121-2
www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/333/7578/1121-c

Recent publications mentioning Healthy Skepticism

Pollard R.
Bitter pills
Sydney Morning Herald 2007 Feb 15
www.smh.com.au/news/world/bitter-pills/2007/02/14/1171405299899.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2

Langley ZL
Antidote for Misleading Advertising: Healthy Skepticism Inc.
ShuffleBrain; 2007 Feb 11
www.indiana.edu/~pietsch/drugads.html

Fleg AN.
Introduction to pharmaceuticology
studentBMJ 2007;15:45-88
www.studentbmj.com/issues/07/02/life/78.php

 

Updates homepage

 

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Next Update: Update 2007-03-29

Previous Update: Update 2007-02-03

Updates homepage






Cases of wilful misrepresentation are a rarity in medical advertising. For every advertisement in which nonexistent doctors are called on to testify or deliberately irrelevant references are bunched up in [fine print], you will find a hundred or more whose greatest offenses are unquestioning enthusiasm and the skill to communicate it.

The best defence the physician can muster against this kind of advertising is a healthy skepticism and a willingness, not always apparent in the past, to do his homework. He must cultivate a flair for spotting the logical loophole, the invalid clinical trial, the unreliable or meaningless testimonial, the unneeded improvement and the unlikely claim. Above all, he must develop greater resistance to the lure of the fashionable and the new.
- Pierre R. Garai (advertising executive) 1963