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Links

Links included here are relevant to Healthy Skepticism's field of interest. However, we do not always agree with the contents.

ON THIS PAGE
Highly recommended sites | Australian sites | Blogs | Books |  Drug Information | Decision making | Education | Evidence Based Medicine | Government | Guidelines | HAI Health Action International and contacts | Health Information and Medical Libraries | Investigative journalism | ISDB International Society of Drug Bulletins and members | Journals | Legal issues | Non-Government Organisations | Pharmaceutical industry sites | Scepticism / Skepticism | Specific drugs | US sites |"Third World" sites | WHO World Health Organisation / Essential drugs

Please notify robyn@healthyskepticism.org if any of the following links require updating.

Highly recommended sites

Australian sites

US sites

Blogs

  • Pharmalot
  • Pharmagossip
  • Pharma Marketing Blog
  • Hooked: Ethics, Medicine, and Pharma
  • GoozNews
  • Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry: A Closer Look
  • Furious Seasons
  • The Carlat Psychiatry Blog
  • BrandweekNRX
  • Scientific Misconduct Blog
  • Health Care Renewal
  • Drug Wonks
  • Prescribing Advice for GPs
  • Pharma Giles
  • In the Pipeline
  • blog.bioethics.net

    • Books

    • Bitter Pills is an intense investigation of the international pharmaceutical industry. But it is written in the form of a personal quest for answers after the author's wife's own severe neurological reaction to one pill of a trendy new antibiotic, so it explores the fears and concerns of anyone who takes drugs as managed caring makes patients lose their patience. The book takes you behind-the-scenes at drug companies and the FDA, and shows the pressures on your own doctors and pharmacists. It's also a very personal story of one couple's struggle to survive a medical emergency together.
    • Misinformed Consent (You can buy a copy of this book from us by contacting peter@healthyskepticism.org )
    • The author of 'Misinformed Consent', Lise Cloutier-Steele, now has her own website called 'Hysterectomy Facts' .

    Drug Information

    bullet Informed Health Online Updated health information you can trust from the Health Research and Education Foundation Ltd. The Foundation is a not-for-profit health promotion organisation based in Melbourne, Australia.
    bullet Evaluating the quality of Internet health information sources
    bullet Annual Review Pharmacology and Toxicology
    bullet Clinical Pharmacology Online
    Our database is designed to provide timely, concise drug information for medical professionals.
    bullet GetWeb
    Physiology abstracts on the World Wide Web via email
    bullet Healthtouch
    "Look up information about prescription or over-the-counter medications to find out about common drug uses, proper use of medicines, and possible drug side effects. This information comes from Medi-Span®, one of the nation's [USA] most respected sources of drug and medication information." (Includes information from "trusted sources" such manufacturers! You have been warned.)
    bullet INFOMED
    German peer-reviewed independent non-profit publications without advertising.
    bullet electronic Medicines Compendium (UK)
    Updated daily by over 120 pharmaceutical companies providing their product information as required by law.
     
    bullet Rx List the Internet Drug Index
    The information provided on this site is not intended as a substitute for seeking regular and necessary professional medical advice. Please use RxList as a supplement only to the advice provided by your physician. RxList is a Free Service to the Internet Community. The RxList Database Consists Primarily of Products Currently on the US Market or close to approval. Every Attempt has Been Made to Assure The Accuracy of RxList. RxList Does Not Offer Any Guarantees Regarding the Accuracy or Completeness of This Data. Use RxList, Therefore, at Your Own Risk!
    bullet South Thames Drug Information Centre (in Guy's & St. Thomas' Hospital Trust) This is one of the network of drug information centres spread around the UK and they have a website which can be accessed free of charge.  It offers a number of useful features including summaries of journal articles
    bullet aDrugRecall.com (USA) A Drug Recall provides news, general information and legal support for defective and potentially harmful drugs.
    bullet APRIL (UK) Adverse Psychiatric Reactions Information Link. APRIL's objective is to create awareness and protect those vulnerable to risk from adverse psychiatric reactions to prescribed and over the counter medications and anaesthetics. 
    bullet USP (USA) helps to ensure that consumers receive quality medicines by establishing state-of-the-art standards that pharmaceutical manufacturers must meet. As the world's most highly recognized and technologically advanced pharmacopeia, USP provides standards for more than 3,800 medicines, dietary supplements, and other health care products.

    Decision making

    Education

    bullet

    Scripps Dental & Nursing Continuing Education (USA) Scripps Educational Services has been providing home-study courses for Continuing Education credit since 1985.

    Patient Focus Issues in relation to pharmacovigilance for the general public (UK)

    Evidence Based Medicine

      • Bandolier is produced monthly in Oxford for the UK NHS R&D Directorate. It contains bullet points (hence Bandolier) of evidence-based medicine.
      • Clinical Evidence, a compendium of the best available research findings on common and important clinical questions, updated and expanded every six months.
      • Cochrane Collaboration (Australasian) (this site provides links to the many other Cochrane sites.)
        The Cochrane Collaboration is an international organisation that aims to help people make well-informed decisions about healthcare by preparing, maintaining and promoting the accessibility of systematic reviews of the effects of healthcare interventions.
      • Evidence Based Health Informatics at Health Information Research Unit
        Evidence based health care promotes the collection, interpretation, and integration of valid, important and applicable patient-reported, clinician-observed, and research-derived evidence. The best available evidence, moderated by patient circumstances and preferences, is applied to improve the quality of clinical judgements and facilitate cost-effective health care.
      • Informed Health Online Updated health information you can trust from the Health Research and Education Foundation Ltd. The Foundation is a not-for-profit health promotion organisation based in Melbourne, Australia.
      • Netting the Evidence
        A ScHARR Introduction to Evidence Based Practice on the Internet. ScHARR = School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield
      • NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination
      • New Zealand Guidelines Group The NZGG is an independent, not-for-profit organisation set up to promote effective delivery of health and disability services, based on evidence.

    Government sites

    Guidelines

      • Canadian Medical Association CPG Infobase. The clinical practice guidelines in this collection were produced or endorsed in Canada by a national, provincial or territorial medical or health organization, professional society, government agency or expert panel.
      • US Agency for Health Care Policy and Research Electronic Catalog - contains a master listing of the information products of the Agency and how to obtain them, and is part of the Government Information Locator Service (GILS)

    HAI Health Action International and contacts

      • Health Action International
        HAI is a non-profit, global network of health, development, consumer and other public interest groups in more than 70 countries working for a more rational use of medicinal drugs. HAI represents the interests of consumers in drug policy and believes that all drugs marketed should be acceptably safe, effective, affordable and meet real medical needs.
      • BUKO-Pharmakampagne, Germany
      • Gezonde Scepsis is an initiative of DGV, the Dutch Institute for the Proper Use of Medicine. DGV aims for proper, efficient, safe and economic use of medicine. Gezonde scepsis aims to shed light on the widespread but sometimes inappropriate and misleading marketing influence of pharmaceutical companies.
      • Consumer Project on Technology, USA
      • Declaration de Berne, Switzerland (in German)
      • DES Action, Canada
        DES Action Canada is a national non-profit consumer organization whose purpose is to identify, educate, provide support to, and advocate for the people exposed to the drug DES. It is the only organization in the country alerting Canadians to the ongoing health risks related to DES. The organization also works toward the prevention of similar public health problems, particularly in the field of reproductive health care.
      • Federconsumatori, Italy
      • Corporate Accountability International ( fomerly INFACT, Canada )
      • Instituto Mario Negri, Italy
      • Public Citizen Health Research Group, USA
      • Social Audit, UK the publishing arm of a UK Registered Charity, Public Interest Research Centre Ltd (PIRC). 
        The name Social Audit derived by analogy: "if there are financial audits, why should there not also be ‘social audits’ – regular reports on the way any company is performing its duty not just to shareholders, but to workers, consumers, indeed everyone affected by what that body does?"
        Founded in 1972, PIRC is a strictly independent enterprise, thanks largely to grants from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, also through sale of publications. Our principal legal object is "to procure" that organisations of all kinds "properly and adequate serve the interests and needs of the public generally (or any section of the public for whose benefit service or assistance they exist or are supposed to exist)."
        PIRC states that "Our size is in inverse proportion to the breadth of our terms, therefore our work is very focused. Mostly it concerns the web of organisations at the centre of power in pharmaceutical medicine, which pretty much decide how medicines are used and to what effect."
      • The Hesperian Foundation, USA

    Health Information and Medical Libraries

      • Centre for Science in the Public Interest
        CSPI is a nutrition advacacy organisation. One of CSPI's major ways to educate the public is through our award-winning Nutrition Action Healthletter, the largest-circulation health newsletter in Nth America. CSPI also has an interest in integrity in science.
      • DES
    Centres for Disease Control and Prevention DES Update
    DES Action USA
    DES Action Affiliates
      • Evaluating the quality of Internet health information sources
      • Drug Industry Document Archive ( University of California, San Fransisco) .

        The Drug Industry Document Archive (DIDA) houses about 1000 documents drawn primarily from United States ex. rel. David Franklin vs. Parke-Davis, Division of Warner-Lambert Company (now owned by Pfizer, Inc). The litigation concerned the marketing of Neurontin (gabapentin). (See About the Project for more details.) DIDA also contains documents on the marketing of Vioxx (rofecoxib) from the public records of the Minority Office of the Congressional Committee on Government Reform. The documents in this Archive focus primarily on the marketing of Neurontin (gabapentin) and Vioxx (rofecoxib), and include internal documents from Parke-Davis, Merck & Co. and correspondence with outside physicians and organizations, such as medical education and communications companies and advertising firms. Also included are regulatory and legal documents, court filings and depositions.
        New documents will be added as they become available.

      • Cambridge University Medical Library
        Welcome to the Medical Library page, which enables users to find out about the Medical Library's collections, services and facilities; to check the details and location of books, journal titles and articles whether they are held in Cambridge or elsewhere; to keep up-to-date with the biomedical literature by searching bibliographic databases; to access electronic publications such as reference books and on-line journals.
      • Centre for Health Promotion University of Toronto
        Its mission is to conduct research and educational activities as well as to provide service in the field of health promotion, defined as "the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve their health".
      • HealthInsite
        HealthInsite is a World Wide Web server which was constructed to provide the first point of entry for those seeking quality information about Australian health & related products and services.
      • INASP International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications is a co-operative network of partners aiming to improve world-wide access to scientific information.
      • Medical Matrix
        The Medical Matrix Project is devoted to posting, annotating, and continuously updating "full content, unrestricted access, Internet clinical medicine resources." Our target audience is primarily United States physicians and healthworkers who are on the front line in prescribing treatment for disease conditions.
      • US National Library of Medicine

    Investigative journalism

    ISDB International Society of Drug Bulletins and members

      • ISDB (International Society of Drug Bulletins)
        The International Society of Drug Bulletins (ISDB) was founded in 1986. It aims to promote the international exchange of information of good quality on drugs and therapeutics, to encourage and to assist the development of professionally independent drug bulletins in all countries and facilitate cooperation among bulletins.
      • Australian Prescriber
        Australian Prescriber is an independent review of therapeutics. It aims to provide short direct and didactic reviews on a range of topics which will assist the readers in their professional duties.
      • Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin
        Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin is published in the UK by Which? Ltd (a subsidiary of Consumers' Association). An eight page, monthly bulletin, it gives rigorous and independent evaluations of drugs and other treatments, and is aimed at doctors and pharmacists.

    Journals

    Legal issues

    • 1-Stop Baycol Lawyer Legal-based site that provides comprehensive information on the Baycol (cerivastatin) recall, the indications for Baycol, associated health risks, and important online resources. In addition, 1-Stop Baycol Lawyer provides legal rights and remedies to anyone who has experienced serious side effects or conditions while taking Baycol.
    • Vickery & Waldner LLP, Houston Texas: Prozac Information

    Non-Government Organisations

    Pharmaceutical industry sites

    Industry associations

    Links to pharmaceutical companies

    Scepticism / Skepticism

    • Australian Skeptics Investigating pseudo-science and the paranormal from a responsible scientific viewpoint.
    • Second Opinions Exposing dietary and medical misinformation.
    • MedicationSense dedicated to providing objective information to help you and your doctor make informed, intelligent choices about medications and effective alternatives to enable you to maximize the benefits while minimizing the risks of treatment.

    Specific drugs 

    "Third World" sites

      • HELP - the Health Education Library for People, India's first Consumer Health Education Resource Center, and one of the world's largest consumer health libraries, as determined by the Medical Library Association, USA, aims to empower people by providing them with the information they need to promote their health, and prevent and treat medical problems in the family in partnership with their doctor. We are a registered charitable trust and a non-profit organisation. We believe that Information is the Best Prescription!
      • Health Link
        is a project of the Health Systems Trust, established to help meet the communication & information needs of health workers in South Africa.
      • Third World Network
        This is a website of information resources presented by a group in the South and about the South. Published by Southbound in association with Third World Network and the Consumers Association of Penang.
      • South East Asia Global Reproductive Health Forum
        seeks to bring together discourses on reproductive health and rights from South Asia and make it accessible online for a larger audience. It also seeks to disseminate the works of smaller grassroots organizations and small presses through its online journal re/productions, and to make this accessible to institutions and individuals in South Asia who may not yet be online through email.

    WHO World Health Organisation / Essential drugs

     

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