Subject: knowledgeable denounce

From: Parks <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 18:15:26 +0900

If you think about it, as long as we draw as big a circle as possible,
and expand the boundaries of mental illness, psychiatry can have more
clients and sell more drugs.

Before the label 17 or 18 percent of people who took Vioxx took the high
dose.

It was written, performed, and paid for by industry. This is the first
time that my job was actually in jeopardy and where the FDA actually
intended to fire me.

For those people I'd say they haven't seen the evidence so they don't
really understand how bad the problem is. They get to the Republicans
and the Democrats. Can you explain what you meant by that? They're
serving industry rather than the public. What earthly benefit was there
that exceeds a 500 percent increase in heart attack risk?

MANETTE: How you do feel about direct-to-consumer advertising?

The FDA assumes the drug is safe and now it's up to the company to prove
that the drug isn't safe.

I've experienced retaliation with many of those other episodes but not
as severe as what I've experienced with Vioxx. This high-level FDA
official never talked to me about this allegation. That's who we're here
to serve.

They'd lose their job and maybe get thrown in prison because you can't
discuss confidential and trade secret information. In terms of when I
identify an unsafe drug, to me it doesn't really matter what drug
company it is.

MANETTE: Do you think there is a criminal cover-up going on between the
FDA and Big Pharma to approve dangerous drugs that sicken and kill
Americans?

Without attributing bad motivations to the scientists doing those
studies all I can do is point to a strong correlation. I can't afford to
make any mistakes. I've had a very different experience.

We're not living in a neutral world where the information we're getting
is objective and unbiased.

All that's left to people now is the courts.

I don't think that people come away with it and they certainly don't
come away with any sense of how likely it is to happen because the
visual image overpowers anything that gets said.

They're not afraid to work with me. I was faced with this dilemma.