Wednesday, December 10, 2003

Report: Drug firms pay NIH monitors
December 7 USA Today story - "Some of the National Institute of Health's top officials have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees from drug companies whose products they were responsible for monitoring, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. The newspaper, citing records it said it began gathering five years ago, reported that in some instances officials of the federal institute operated as consultants for companies whose drugs were linked to the deaths of patients taking part in NIH studies."  
  

Considerations in the Pharmacologic Management of Severe Depression
An October 10 Medscape Psychiatry & Mental Health article posted recently in the free area of Medscape - " Unlike the rose that would smell as sweet by any other name, "severe major depression" is a name that subsumes many qualities. For the term "severe" to be of clinical value, it should imply that there is a greater-than-usual degree of impairment and/or that a greater intensity of treatment is required to achieve recovery. The DSM-IV "severe" specifier for a major depressive episode focuses primarily on the impairment aspect, requiring the presence of both "symptoms in excess of what is required to make the diagnosis" and "marked" functional impairment. However, marked impairment may not necessarily warrant a greater intensity of treatment, as patients with greater and lesser degrees of impairment may respond equally well to the same treatment. In contrast, milder persisting forms of depression may require more intense types of treatment for sustained improvement. Determining the severity of an episode of major depression is useful primarily in so far as it can predict the future course of the depression or the level of treatment necessary for improvement." [Viewing Medscape resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

Drugs for depressed children banned (UK)
December 10 story in The Guardian - "Modern antidepressant drugs which have made billions for the pharmaceutical industry will be banned from use in children today because of evidence, suppressed for years, that they can cause young patients to become suicidal. The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) told doctors last night not to prescribe all but one of the antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). The exception is Prozac, which is licensed for use in depressed children in the US. But the MHRA will warn that, at best, it helps only one child in 10. The decision has big implications for drug regulation."