pharmaceutical industry officials acknowledged they were using prisoners for testing because they were cheaper than chimpanzees

By the early 1970s, even experiments involving prisoners were considered scandalous. In widely covered congressional hearings in 1973, pharmaceutical industry officials acknowledged they were using prisoners for testing because they were cheaper than chimpanzees.

As the supply of prisoners and mental patients dried up, researchers looked to other countries.

It made sense. Clinical trials could be done more cheaply and with fewer rules. And it was easy to find patients who were taking no medication, a factor that can complicate tests of other drugs.

Still, in the last 15 years, two international studies sparked outrage.

One was likened to Tuskegee. U.S.-funded doctors failed to give the AIDS drug AZT to all the HIV-infected pregnant women in a study in Uganda even though it would have protected their newborns. U.S. health officials argued the study would answer questions about AZT's use in the developing world.

The other study, by Pfizer Inc., gave an antibiotic named Trovan to children with meningitis in Nigeria, although there were doubts about its effectiveness for that disease. Critics blamed the experiment for the deaths of 11 children and the disabling of scores of others. Pfizer settled a lawsuit with Nigerian officials for $75 million but admitted no wrongdoing.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general reported that between 40 and 65 percent of clinical studies of federally regulated medical products were done in other countries in 2008, and that proportion probably has grown. The report also noted that U.S. regulators inspected fewer than 1 percent of foreign clinical trial sites.

Monitoring research is complicated, and rules that are too rigid could slow new drug development. But it's often hard to get information on international trials, sometimes because of missing records and a paucity of audits, said Dr. Kevin Schulman, a Duke University professor of medicine who has written on the ethics of international studies.

These issues were still being debated when, last October, the Guatemala study came to light.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110227/ap_on_he_me/us_med_experiments_on_humans

ongoing campaigns to have the treatment banned were supported by the lack of scientific evidence that it was neither safe nor effective

A comprehensive review of electroshock therapy (ECT) has concluded that the risk of damage caused by the procedure cannot justify its continued use in medicine.

The review of more than 100 previous studies and reports into ECT was carried out by two psychologists, Dr John Read of the University of Auckland and Professor Richard Bentall of the University of Bangor in Wales. Both are noted critics of electro shock treatment and the medical model used in psychiatry.

The findings, published in the December issue of the international scientific journal Epidemiologia e Psichiatria Sociale, state there is minimal support for the effectiveness of ECT in the treatment of depression or schizophrenia. In addition, it states there is no evidence of any benefits beyond the treatment period.

It concludes: “Given the strong evidence of persistent and, for some, permanent brain dysfunction ... and the evidence of a slight but significant increased risk of death, the cost-benefit analysis for ECT is so poor that its use cannot be scientifically justified.”

In a statement, Dr Read said the findings suggest that ongoing campaigns by ECT recipients to have the treatment banned were supported by the lack of scientific evidence that it was either safe or effective.

“If we took an evidence-based approach to the heated controversy about ECT it would be banished to the historical rubbish bin of previous treatments thought to be effective in the past, such as rotating chairs, surprise baths and lobotomies,” he said.

Prof Bentall added that the short-term benefits gained by a small minority could not justify the risks to which patients were exposed.

“The continued use of ECT therefore represents a failure to introduce the ideals of evidence-based medicine into psychiatry. This failure has occurred not only in the design and execution of research, but also in the translation of research findings into clinical practice. It seems there is resistance to the research data in the ECT community, and perhaps in psychiatry in general,” he said.

http://wellbeingfoundation.com/news.html

MEDICINE-related deaths are killing more people than heart attacks or cancer

About half a million Australians experience an adverse effect from their prescription medication every year, says pharmacist Ken Lee, whose study “How Safe is Your Prescription?” was launched at the Australian Pharmacy Professional Conference. His research shows about 190 000 hospital admissions a year are associated with medicines and their harmful side effects.


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/medications-kill-more-than-cancer-or-heart-attacks/story-e6frg6nf-1226022801971