WP: Comparison of Psychiatric Drugs Often Favors Firm Paying for Study

[Pirate Smile]

Comparison of Psychiatric Drugs Often Favors Firm Paying for Study

By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 12, 2006; Page A01

Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co. recently funded five studies that compared its antipsychotic drug Zyprexa with Risperdal, a competing drug made by Janssen. All five showed Zyprexa was superior in treating schizophrenia.

But when Janssen sponsored its own studies comparing the two drugs, Risperdal came out ahead in two out of three.

In fact, when psychiatrist John Davis analyzed every publicly available trial funded by the pharmaceutical industry pitting six new antipsychotic drugs against one another, nine in 10 showed that the best drug was the one made by the company funding the study.

"On the basis of these contrasting findings in head-to-head trials, it appears that whichever company sponsors the trial produces the better antipsychotic drug," Davis and other experts wrote in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/11/AR2006041101478.html

[killbotfactory]

1. Oh, golly! How could that happen?!

Next your gonna tell me all those studies the tobacco companies sponsored showing tobacco as completely safe were all bogus, too!

[valerief]

2. Holy hamstring. File this under Duh!

Bet Vedantam didn't even have to leave his bed to scribble this one out.

The *news* is either cluttered with lies or bonehead studies like this. Oh, well, once the Bush bombs start flying we'll be wiping our rears with newspapers. At least then they'll be useful.

[vickitulsa]

3. I'm so glad to see this splashed on the front page, at least.

Everyone with one brain cell left should already know what a total JOKE the "clinical trials" (they don't even merit that term, really) funded by pharmaceutical companies are. My brother's been a pharmacist for almost 30 years, and I have to be careful of getting him started on the healthcare system in this country, but especially the big pharmaceutical companies' part in it!

What a completely travesty it's been, for at least the last 10 or 15 years, especially. Ever since the pharm lobbies got corporate-loving cons to do away with laws prohibiting pharmaceutical companies from advertising their products directly to the public, doctors and many other healthcare professionals have thrown up their hands in disgust.

If you're a patient, I ask you to think about how long it's been since you last sensed that most healthcare workers actually did CARE about you?... particularly the ones who are making the big bucks from their career.

If anyone thinks about it, it's just insane that we're hearing the ridiculous ads we hear on TV, in particular, with the grinning young men touting Viagra and Cialis and balding men pushing hair growth products (oh but don't let your wife touch them, it will cause deformities in embryos!). They troll for the women, too -- buy this new patch or implant you can wear for a month that relieves you of having to count pills to prevent pregnancy (even though 3% of women in our trials ended up dead or disabled from blood clots).

Well, you all know the drill; I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here at DU, right? The big pharms buy so many millions of $$ worth of ads, we can be sure they're spending not one tenth of that budget on research! Of all the many products or services we pay sinfully inflated prices for, medications have to be up there at the very top of the list....

When you think about what these products are FOR, what they DO, and how important it is that they be properly prescribed and monitored, it's just plain crazy that pharmaceutical companies are the ones in control of the research and distribution (and pricing) system for them.

MAKES ME SICK! :-( :puke:

[MaryBear]

4. And the truth is. . . it all depends!

Which drug works best for an individual depends on the person -- what works for one does not work for another. They all work -- more or less, depending on factors that are not all known.

[sweetheart]

5. God pays for cannabis research

And God's work always satisfies!

Keep up the studies! :-)