Drug assessment specialist Dr. Barbara Mintzes looks at the ways women’s sexual difficulties are being repackaged as symptoms of a disorder called “female sexual dysfunction” in order to feed a marketing machine that promises to “cure” it. Dr. Mintzes and Ray Moynihan co-authored the book, Sex, Lies, and Pharmaceuticals.
Reviews and analyzes disease awareness campaigns sponsored by pharmaceutical companies that use self-diagnostic tools. Uses the example of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) to discuss how the marketing of self-diagnosis can change the patient into a consumer to achieve the aims of drug companies. (Abstract only)
PharmaWatch’s blog seeks to shed light on some of the most significant policy, research, legislative and program issues related to the safety and efficacy of prescription drugs, vaccines and medical devices in Canada. They believe that the Canadian public, patients, physicians, policy analysts, researchers, academics, authors, politicians and the media have a right to know how our drug approval and monitoring system works, how it compares to other international jurisdictions, the factors influencing decision making and whether Health Canada is protecting our health and safety.
Examines how pharmaceutical companies promoted hormone therapy drugs, including the use of medical writing companies to produce ghostwritten manuscripts and place them into medical journals.
Finds that testing for safety and effectiveness of prescrption drugs in Canada takes place almost exclusively before medications are approved and that there are “few regulatory obligations once a product reaches the market.”Assesses the Canadian post-market systems of drug surveillance - “pharmacovigilance” - and finds that there is no national system to test drugs for safety after they reach the market.
A site that is operated by Public Citizen out of Washington DC. Provides a limited amount of information on each drug without having to subscribe to the service. Also produces a book which is updated periodically. Free fact sheets available on the site with such topics as “Ten Rules for Safer Drug Use.”
Mythe : la publicité s’adressant directement au consommateur permet d’informer le patient
Media Type:
Online
Discusses and debunks the idea promoted by drug companies that direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs has health benefits for patients. Discusses the risks for patients being prescribed unnecessary drugs, and the astronomical costs that legalizing DTCA in Canada could entail.
Online discussion with The Push to Prescribe (Women’s Press, 2009)editor Anne Rochon Ford and contributors Colleen Fuller and Abby Lippmanon howdrugs are produced, regulated, marketed, and used in ways that affect many aspects of everyday life, and the extent of these effects, and their special meaning for women.
Delves into the world of prescription drugs in Canada, and considers the impact on the health of women. From the inadequate testing of many drugs on women in clinical trials, to the sometimes questionable portrayal of women in illegal prescription drug advertising, Canadian drug policy has not always paid attention to how women and men are affected differently. 297pp, Paperback
