drug-freealliance.org Blog

The following is a clip from a news story that appeared on Bloomberg.com yesterday – Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) — AstraZeneca Plc “buried” unfavorable studies on its antipsychotic drug Seroquel, according to an internal e-mail unsealed as part of litigation over the medicine.

The drugmaker failed to publicize results of at least three clinical trials of Seroquel and engaged in “cherry picking” of data from one of those studies for use in a presentation, an AstraZeneca official said in a December 1999 e-mail unsealed yesterday under an agreement between the company and lawyers for patients. The London-based company faces about 9,000 lawsuits claiming it failed to properly warn users that Seroquel can cause diabetes and other health problems.

“The larger issue is how we face the outside world when they begin to criticize us for suppressing data,” John Tumas, an AstraZeneca publications manager, told colleagues in the e-mail.

More than 15,000 patients have sued AstraZeneca, claiming the company withheld information of a connection between diabetes and Seroquel use from doctors and patients. Many of the lawsuits also claim AstraZeneca promoted Seroquel, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, for unapproved uses.”

At the Drug-Free Alliance, we hear stories from families all the time who have been negatively affected by drugs like this and others in the same category.  Unfortunately, many of them were even given these drugs at an inpatient drug rehab center that told them it would help them in some way.  It is horrible to think about the millions of people who have problems in life that are misled to thinking one of these drugs can handle the situation when they often make their lives worse in the long run.

For more information on finding drug and alcohol rehabs and addiction treatment centers that work.

In these times it is very difficult to please everyone when it comes to political views – actually quite impossible.  Probably the only thing that can be agreed on is that the state of our nation isn’t great and a lot of people are trying to better its condition.

Along with a new Administration comes new heads of departments and other appointments.  The person leading the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has been called the nation’s “Drug Czar”.  In previous years, the right side of the aisle has been more prone to support law enforcement, imprisonment and anti-trafficking programs while the left side has wanted to legalize and regulate some drugs and reduce harm through needle exchanges while continuing a lifetime of treatments with medication therapies that carry heavy side effects.

Truthfully, neither side of the aisle is correct and yet at the same time they’re both partially correct.  In my mind, a perfect drug policy would be one that:

1. Has an effective national drug prevention/ demand reduction agenda implemented in all grade levels through the public school system.

2. Encourages drug testing and monitoring programs in education and the workplace.

3. Does not legalize harmful drugs but doesn’t lock people up for years for getting high – but instead offers them a chance to get their lives turned around.

4. Imposes harsher penalties on drug companies and holds the FDA accountable for the massive drug-pushing that occurs through pharmaceuticals.

5. Requires any treatment program that receives tax dollars to comply with outcome study standards for rehabilitation results – meaning they have to show that they’re actually working – and then make more of those drug rehab centers available to more people in every state or region by diverting “drug war” money into a broader treatment initiative.

There are probably a few more points that I’m missing, but these would cover the main objectives.  The reality of the current situation is that all of the previous strategies have failed and billions of tax dollars are wasted every year on ineffective treatment programs, ineffective prevention programs, harsh criminal prosecution of drug charges and violent drug trafficking battles.  We could save more money and help more people by requiring people and programs to be accountable for their actions, including requiring people to pass drug tests in order to continue to receive any type of state or Federal assistance like Medicaid or Medicare.

What do you think?