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About Me
Alison Bass is a Pulitzer Prize nominee and author of Side Effects: A Prosecutor, a Whistleblower and a Bestselling Antidepressant on Trial, which won the NASW Science in Society Award. She was a longtime medical and science writer for The Boston Globe and has also written for The Miami Herald, Psychology Today and MIT's Technology Review, among other publications. A series she wrote for The Boston Globe on psychiatry was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and she has received many other journalism awards. In 2007, she won a prestigious Alicia Patterson Fellowship to write Side Effects. Bass teaches journalism at Mount Holyoke College and Brandeis University.
Category Archives: scientific misconduct
A review of two new books that attack the DSM-5, psychiatry’s “bible”
Share I reviewed two books now circulating about the DSM and the current controversy over the DSM-5 for The American Scholar — see review here. The two books are The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry by … Continue reading
Posted in antidepressants, antipsychotic drugs, conflicts of interest, drug marketing, FDA, pharmaceutical industry, prescription drug abuse, scientific misconduct
Tagged Allen Frances, APA, DSM, DSM-5, Gary Greenberg, NIMH, pharmaceutical industry, prescription drugs, pychiatric diagnoses
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Martin Keller, principal investigator of Paxil study 329, retires from Brown University
Share I just learned that Dr. Martin Keller, principal investigator of the controversial Paxil study 329, has retired from his position as a professor of psychiatry at Brown University — see here. As Pharmalot notes, Keller quietly retired June 30 in … Continue reading
Calls for action against authors of controversial Paxil study are getting louder
Share In the wake of GlaxoSmithKline’s record-breaking $3 billion settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, a number of psychiatrists and researchers have redoubled their efforts to get Paxil study 329 retracted. As mentioned here and in other news accounts, the … Continue reading
Posted in antidepressants, clinical trials, conflicts of interest, drug marketing, ghostwriting, National Institutes of Health, pharmaceutical industry, scientific journal retractions, scientific misconduct, university industry collaboration
Tagged antidepressants, Brown University, Department of Justice, GlaxoSmithKline, Health Care Renewal, Martin Keller, oneboringoldman, Paxil
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Why academic researchers involved in fraudulent Paxil study escape scrutiny
Share The Chronicle of Higher Education this week ponders why various universities have taken no action against the academic researchers who co-authored the notorious Paxil study that formed the crux of GlaxoSmithKline’s recent $3 billion settlement with the Department of … Continue reading
Posted in antidepressants, clinical trials, National Institutes of Health, pharmaceutical industry, scientific journal retractions, scientific misconduct, university industry collaboration
Tagged Brown University, Chronicle of Higher Education, Department of Justice, GlaxoSmithKline, Martin Keller, Paxil
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New York AG’s office should take a bow for GlaxoSmithKline’s record-breaking fine
Share I was glad to see that the New York Times‘ reporters covering GlaxoSmithKline’s $3 billion settlement tipped their hat to former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. After all, it was his crew and specifically a pioneering attorney by … Continue reading
Posted in antidepressants, antipsychotic drugs, clinical trials, drug marketing, patient care, pharmaceutical industry, scientific journal retractions, scientific misconduct, suicide rates, whistleblowing
Tagged clinical trial, Eliot Spitzer, fraud, GlaxoSmithKline, New York Attorney General's office, New York Times, Paxil, whistleblowing
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Is the FDA violating its own mandate to approve safe drugs?
Share Is the Food and Drug Administration violating its own mandate to approve safe drugs? That was the question that Donald Light, co-author of The Risk for Prescription Drugs and a long-time medical sociologist, posed at a talk yesterday at … Continue reading
Posted in antidepressants, biotech industry, clinical trials, continuing medical education, drug marketing, FDA, health care costs, medical devices, patient care, pharmaceutical industry, scientific misconduct, suicide rates, Uncategorized
Tagged antidepressants, clinical trials, Congress, Donald Light, FDA, Massachusetts Legislature, me-too drugs, off-label use, pipeline, safety and effectiveness of drugs
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How drug companies continue to hide the true story of Tamiflu and other drugs from the American public
Share I’ve been reading Dr. David Healy’s new book, Pharmageddon, and while some of it may seem like old news, I was struck by his fresh analysis of how the pharmaceutical industry has turned the original purpose of clinical trials … Continue reading
When it comes to scientific misconduct, should there be a statute of limitations?
Share I was hesitant to weigh in at first when I learned that Brown University’s School of Medicine had decided not to pressure a psychiatric journal to retract the seriously flawed Paxil study that I wrote about in Side Effects. … Continue reading
International group seeks Brown University’s help in retracting controversial Paxil study
Share The international research organization Healthy Skepticism has called on Brown University to help convince a psychiatric journal to retract the controversial Paxil trial that I wrote about in Side Effects, according to the Brown Daily Herald. The principal investigator … Continue reading
Allegations of fraud and extensive ghostwriting form core of upcoming Texas case against Johnson & Johnson
Share On November 28, the Texas Attorney General is expected to begin a landmark trial against Johnson & Johnson on charges that the pharmaceutical giant “subverted scientific integrity” by paying off academic psychiatrists and state officials to boost the use … Continue reading