by Alison Bass | Mar 25, 2010 | Uncategorized
First the good news: The Physician Payment Sunshine Act is now law, signed by President Obama as part of the health care bill overhaul. Starting in 2012, drug and medical device companies must report all consulting, speaking and other payments to doctors and teaching...
by Alison Bass | Mar 17, 2010 | Uncategorized
Every semester, I do an in-class competition to show my students the power of the Web in digging up data for stories. I separate them into groups and ask them to find the answers to specific questions about current sociopolitical trends. Two questions I always ask...
by Alison Bass | Mar 8, 2010 | Uncategorized
I have hesitated to weigh in on the debate raging over the proposed changes to the DSM-V (psychiatry’s diagnostic bible), in large part because others more literate in psychiatric minutiae have already done so. To wit: Dr. Allen Frances in the Psychiatric Times,...
by Alison Bass | Feb 25, 2010 | Uncategorized
The glowing review of Judith Warner’s new book, We’ve Got Issues, in The New York Times this week didn’t exactly catch me by surprise — anyone who has read Warner’s guest columns in recent years knows her take on psychiatric drugs —...
by Alison Bass | Feb 18, 2010 | Uncategorized
In my health and science journalism class at Mount Holyoke yesterday, we were talking about all the questions journalists need to ask in deciding whether and how to report on a new medical finding. Two of the key questions that emerged were: 1. did the results come...
by Alison Bass | Feb 8, 2010 | Uncategorized
It’s true that the drug industry was hard hit last year with some pretty hefty fines for the illegal off-label promotion of drugs — $1.4 billion against Eli Lilly for its off-label promotion of Zyprexa and $2.3 billion against Pfizer for doing the same...
by Alison Bass | Jan 29, 2010 | Uncategorized
Those of you in the mood for a serious read might want to check out an article in the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry about the way in which many drug companies use their marketing muscle to mislead physicians and consumers about the safety and effectiveness of their...
by Alison Bass | Jan 25, 2010 | Uncategorized
Remember Dr. Lawrence DuBuske, the Harvard Medical School allergist whom I outed as the highest paid doctor on GlaxoSmithKline’s payroll for the second quarter of last year? Rather than give up his lucrative speaking and consulting gigs for Glaxo and myriad...
by Alison Bass | Jan 19, 2010 | Uncategorized
It’s nice to see that Massachusetts anesthesiologist Scott Reuben has plead guilty to faking medical research and agreed to pay restitution fees for his fraud. But there is one aspect of his plea agreement with federal prosecutors (which he signed last week in...
by Alison Bass | Jan 11, 2010 | Uncategorized
As Congressional committees work to meld the House and Senate versions of the health bill and Republicans launch a last-minute effort to scuttle the entire enterprise, one unsavory element of the legislation seems to have escaped much public attention. That’s...
