Unethical practices - drug industry

[Mark Haythorn]

In <41is8b$83f at atlantis.utmb.edu> Sy Fisher <sfisher at utmb.edu> writes: 
>

>
>Yes, it is generally true that a drug may be 
>"voluntarily" withdrawn by the manufacturer 
>(with some notable past exceptions) on the 
>basis of data collected during PREmarketing clinical 
>trials.  Of course, this is when FDA is still closely 
>examining all the data prior to approval.  But once a 
>new drug has been marketed, pharmaceutical companies 
>clearly do not want their drugs to be carefully 
>monitored in the real world of clinical practice--in 
>particular, not by any systematic method that can 
>sensitively compare possible ADR profiles.  A drug 
>company will indeed resort to unethical behavior when
>its profits appear to be threatened, even to the extent 
>of attempting to deprive physicians and their 
>patients of important new information.  For more 
>extensive documentation of these latter assertions, 
>E-mail me for a copy of a post I distributed last month 
>on "Hanky-Panky in the Pharmaceutical Industry."
>---------------------------------179603011712718--



WHICH, by the way, is proudly published in the Aug 22 issue of SCRIP.

I was flipping thru the journal and found the story!  It was
interesting to see coverage in a prominent journal!  Congrats to Dr.
Fisher!!