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Drug News by Bruce Shriver
Complementary and Alternative Therapies The M. D. Anderson Cancer Center website contains an extensive amount of information for both patients and physicians regarding complementary medicine and alternative therapies. Their Reviews of Therapies subweb contains "evidence-based reviews of published research studies on a variety of complementary/integrative or alternative cancer therapies such as alternative medical systems (e.g., traditional Chinese medicine), herbal and plant (e.g., essiac), other biologic, organic, and pharmacologic substances (e.g., cartilage), nutrition and special diets (e.g., macrobiotic), body-manipulative therapies (e.g., massage), energy (e.g., tai chi) and mind-body approaches (e.g., support groups)”. In particular, they have detailed reviews of
The Truth about Drug Companies Janet Maslin's review of Marcia Angell’s book, The Truth About Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It is very interesting. Here are some excerpts from Maslin's review. “Marcia Angell is a former editor in chief of The New England Journal of Medicine and spent two decades on the staff of that publication. If much of that time was devoted to reviewing papers on pharmacological research, it must have been spent in a state of near-apoplexy. This book is a scorching indictment of drug companies and their research and business practices. ‘Despite all its excesses, this is an important industry that should be saved — mainly from itself,’ she writes. That turns out to be one of her more forgiving pronouncements, because the rest of the book is devoted to assertions of shady, misleading corporate behavior. If she is accurate in her assumptions about big drug companies' feistiness and tenacity, Angell is likely to be on the receiving end of angry rebuttals. She is sometimes vague enough to leave room for such attacks. (‘I have heard that morale in some parts of the FDA is extremely low, and I can certainly understand why it might be.’).” Read Maslin's entire review by clicking here. Angell's book is published by Random House.
Drug Makers Create Database for Trial Results Lisa Richwine, in the above article, states, “The drug industry, fighting off criticism for hiding data from negative studies, unveiled on Tuesday a database for firms to voluntarily provide summarized results of most clinical trials of medicines sold in the United States. The Web-based clearinghouse will contain summaries of findings, both positive and negative, of studies completed since October 2002, according to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the drug industry's lobbying group known as PhRMA”.
Call for Mandatory Clinical Trial Registration, Open Access to Results Laurie Barclay, in the above article, states, “The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) has mandated registration of all clinical trials, and other groups, such as the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), are requiring that both negative and positive results from pharmaceutical trials be reported in detail and made publicly available. Manufacturers of medical devices would also be affected by requirements for trial registration”. Click here to read the announcement that appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Clinical drug trials 'distorted' Leading medical journals have said, "Greater openness is needed to stop clinical drug trials being distorted. In a joint editorial, the 11 journals told researchers and firms to register trials at the start so unflattering or unclear results cannot be covered up. The journals, including the BMJ, have agreed not to publish studies not registered straight away. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors said it was acting as some trial results were being withheld. The committee's commentary, which is appearing in all their publications, said: "Honest reporting begins with revealing the existence of all clinical studies, even those that reflect unfavorably on a research sponsor's product. "Unfortunately, selective reporting of trials does occur, and it distorts the body of evidence available for clinical decision-making." The journals demanding openness are:
Chemo Brain Here are some links that have been passed onto us recently that discuss the phenomena known as “chemo brain”.
A report from the Late Effects Surveillance System W. Stohr, T. Lange, A. Kremers, I. Brecht, J. Treuner, A. Dinnesen, and J. Beck wrote an article, Hearing function in soft tissue sarcoma patients after treatment with carboplatin, describing the results of their study to analyze carboplatin-induced ototoxicity. They report that “Twenty patients who had received carboplatin for the treatment of soft tissue sarcoma were investigated prospectively for ototoxicity in a multi-centre trial. Hearing function was tested by audiometry. All patients but one were treated with a cumulative dose of 1500 mg/m(2), the remaining with 500 mg/m(2). We evaluated the incidence and dependencies of hearing loss, and compared hearing thresholds to those of an untreated control group (n=60). Hearing thresholds in the carboplatin treated group were only marginally poorer compared with those of the control group. After carboplatin therapy no patient (0%; 95%-KI: 0-17%) had a hearing loss >20 dB. Hearing thresholds were not dependent on age, sex or cranial irradiation. We conclude that ototoxicity after carboplatin was low in our group of patients”. Their article appeared in which appeared in Oncol Rep. 2004 Oct;12(4) pp 767-71.
V1N5 ESUN Copyright © 2004 Liddy Shriver Sarcoma Initiative.
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