Another example of chocolate-related research being inappropriately hyped in a news release by an institution that should know better.
“Those who wade through the entire news release will eventually learn that chocolate doesn’t in fact help prevent preeclampsia. But many will be misled by the headline and vague lead sentence that appear to tout benefits.”
Big pharma knows that lawmakers are hopping mad over drug price increases. So the industry is launching an ad campaign to try to repair its tarred image as the debate over drug pricing rages on.
Playing the role of modern-day lords of the manor are pharmaceutical corporations, which have taken a good that was once considered off-limits for private profiteering and turned it into an expensive commodity.
Sunday's Super Bowl victory by the Denver Broncos over the Carolina Panthers was panned by many viewers as kind of sloppy and less than thrilling. But at least the commercials offered something to talk about — particularly two ads devoted to bowel movements.
Pop quiz:
In the last two weeks, what class of drugs was mentioned in the State of the Union address, was the subject of new guidelines proposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was reported to kill more Americans than car accidents and whose users are 40 times more likely to abuse heroin? If you guessed opioids—these would be drugs like hydrocodone (Vicodin), oxycodone (OxyContin, Percocet), morphine (Kadian, Avinza), hydromorphone (Dilaudid), codeine, and related drugs–you’re right.
Medical journals are supposed to promote professional values – scientific, social, and ethical. Quality matters, in each of these domains. Lately, however, highly ranked journals are failing in respect of ethics commentaries.
For years, many have asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to define the term “natural” for use in food labeling. Private citizens asked. Corporations asked. Even federal courts asked. But until recently, aside from an attempt at rulemaking in the early 1990s (an attempt that the FDA formally abandoned in 1993), the FDA had taken no steps to formally define the term. Rather, the FDA relied upon its policy regarding the use of “natural” as meaning that nothing artificial or synthetic (including all color additives, regardless of source) has been included in, or has been added to, a food.
Finally, however, the FDA has taken some long-awaited action; it opened a docket on November 12, 2015 to get input from the public.
Pharmaceutical companies have more power than ever, and the American people are paying the price—too often with our lives.
America is the most medicated nation on earth, with some 70 percent of Americans taking prescription drugs—yet we have worse health outcomes than other industrialized countries. Part of the problem may be the drugs themselves. As Slate’s devastating expose on the fraud in clinical drug trials shows us: We don’t know much about the drugs we prescribe.
