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Kudos to Philip Dawdy at the Furious Seasons blog for his original reporting on the litigation behind the antipsychotic drug Seroquel (quetiapine). Thousands of people have brought lawsuits against the maker of Seroquel, Astrazenica, because the drug was pushed off label for the treament of conditions other than schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, the conditions it was approved for, without adequate warning that the drug could cause weight gain, which leads to heart disease and diabetes. Not too good for a drug that is associated with only a 10% improvement in depression, while it increases the risk of life threatening diabetes, and is associated with a 25% increase in sedation, based on studies in the American Journal of Psychiatry and Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology.
Now it comes out that Dr. Wayne MacFadden, who was heading up the group that was performing clinical trials of Seroquel for bipolar, was banging: 1) one of the study investigators; 2) a ghost writer writing manuscripts and preparing posters and presentations about the drug; 3) two other research assistants and/or employees. He also offered sexual favors in return for getting inside scoops from the investigator about other competing drug companies, and tried to intimidate her about reading the literature related to other drug trials. I wonder if he was one of the early members of the ACNP who according to (ill founded, I’m sure) rumour opted to have their annual meeting in Puerto Rico cuz they had cheaper whores? And in the end, it looks like after all that aggravation, the investigator in question who was identified as a doctor at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, apparently didn’t even get her name on the friggin paper!
I’ve been through THAT aggravation!
WE SEL DRUGZ LEZ HAVE SOME WINE!
The funniest part is that Philip emailed the Editors of the American Journal of Psychiatry where one of the studies, with the cheesy name of “Bolder” was published, asking for a comment about whether this affected their opinion of the integrity of the trial results, and one of them responsed “Let’s not respond to this guy anymore.” But then copied Philip on the email! HA HA!
Sometimes these older generation guys are a little clueless on basic use of the computer. So let us digress now for a little lesson. When you get an email and want to respond to it, there are two choices: reply and reply all.
Don't hit the button on the right, unless you are absolutely sure.
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Sex, Drugs, and Seroquel | Before You Take That Pill http://tinyurl.com/djf7jj
Why do I feel like that story is worthy of being a movie on Lifetime? Or maybe even a sitcom…
Lifetime for women, really. And to all, don’t forget to go to furiousseasons.com and donate to the web site of an unemployed journalist who came up with this story. Kind of like an NPR pledge drive.
Doug,
it’s not just old people who make this mistake…I got banned from a yahoo group for making a similar mistake and saying something less than flattering about someone in the group because I thought only my friend was getting the email…
I apologized to the victim of the remarks who graciously accepted my apology—I’m still in a group he runs…he held no grudge…but got kicked out of the other group…
it was actually very upsetting to me…and it was just a stupid mistake and not vicious or anything, just not nice, in any case some might believe there are no mistakes and my unconscious mind was purposely trying to get me in trouble..??
I’ve thought about this possibility as valid as I’m actually routinely irritated in that group. Yet I also got some good info from it.
sorry if this was off topic…but I’m always doing stupid stuff like that with email…
I guess I do chock it up to my drug induced cognitive impairment more than anything else.
Doug, good to see the net is buzzing about Philip’s well done article.
I had to chuckle though with the email illustration. You have a good point there- but what do you do when your parents are Senior Citizens, and they and everyone else in the retirement community CC’s a letter so by the time your mother sends it to you, you can see at least 20 other people have forwarded it their loved ones and family?
No matter how many times we have told her about cut and paste, delete and other keys…..
Sigh.
The cat is cute too.
Who hasn’t done the ‘reply all’ mistake, or written an email late at night when your defenses were down that you regretted later? I’ve had the occasion to later write to people and say please disregard what I said before.
Oh boy, these guys are just unbelievable.
The thing is, I know people who have been helped by off-label uses of Seroquel when nothing else — NOTHING — had helped them. And they haven’t gained weight or experienced the other adverse side effects.
I just hate to see the baby thrown out with the bathwater, but gees, this is so egregious.