Monday, July 12, 2004

WHO Wants to Start Drug Trial Registry
Washington Post story - "The World Health Organization wants to establish an international registry of drug trials to ensure that the public finds out when medications do not work, as well as when they do, officials said yesterday. Pressure has been growing on pharmaceutical companies to fully disclose details of all clinical trials, not just those that support the use of their products. WHO officials said an international database, which would be modeled on registries in the United States and other countries, will be proposed to national health ministers at a meeting in November." See also the July 6 story at the same source, Drugmakers Prefer Silence On Test Data.  
  

Drug Companies Seek to Mend Their Image
July 8 New York Times story - "With drug prices skyrocketing, the pharmaceutical industry has long had plenty of critics. And in a measure of just how badly tarnished the industry's image has become, even some of its most prominent defenders are turning against it. That could spell trouble, which is why the drug industry is about to begin a charm offensive to try to win back the nation's affection. Roy Vagelos, the well-known former chairman of Merck & Company and one of the industry's most prominent boosters, now condemns drug makers for the 'exorbitant' prices of new medicines and 'galloping' annual increases of old ones. Government price controls, he predicts, are almost inevitable..." [Viewing New York Times resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

3 Senators Seeking Details for a Drug-Trial Database
July 9 New York Times story - "Three Democratic senators who have already expressed interest in creating a required database of clinical drug trials asked federal regulators yesterday to outline what additional financing and enforcement mechanisms would be needed to create such a database. The three - Senators Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut - made the request in a letter sent to the heads of the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health. In the letter, the senators asked what could be done to either improve an existing government-run database, expand it or create a new one, so that drug makers would be required to post both the existence of a drug trial and its results..." [Viewing New York Times resources requires registration, which is free]. See also the ClinicalTrials.gov, which "provides regularly updated information about federally and privately supported clinical research in human volunteers."  
  

Gene Discovery Could Change Psychiatric Care
HealthDay story at Yahoo - "For the first time, researchers working with mice have identified a naturally occurring genetic mutation that affects brain levels of serotonin, a neurochemical linked to depression, anxiety and other psychiatric conditions. The discovery may help explain why some patients feel much better after taking serotonin-altering antidepressants such as Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft, and why others do not..."