Theres a scene in an old 30 Rock episode where we see Liz Lemons most recent Google searches: singles yoga and scalp pain. Hilarious, yes, but the moment also illustrated how often we appeal to the Internet with nebulous health concerns like bleary vision, weird snoring, and yup, scalp pain. This behavior is so ubiquitous, a group of scientists at Microsoft, Stanford, and Columbia University are examining search data as a way to identify drug interactions and side effects that doctors might miss. In a study called "Web-Scale Pharmacovigilance: Listening to Signals from the Crowd, the scientists proved that by analyzing several million search queries, they could predict that two medications (an antidepressant and a cholesterol drug) would cause harmful side effects. Why does this matter? For one thing, its a huge improvement on the existing infrastructure for identifying side effects. According to the New York Times, "the F.D.A. asks physicians to report side effects through a system known as the Adverse Event Reporting System. But its scope is limited by the fact that data is generated only when a physician notices something and reports it." And even if a doctor does take notice, it might not change whats being … Continue reading →

Contributor (866) 529-2400 The U.S. pharmaceutical industry and its federal regulator, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, have a lot on their plates. Brand-drug makers must pump out new medications, to stay fiscally afloat, as their drug patents fall like dominoes, which the generic competitors pick up and run for their lives with. At the same time, there is a craft in the drug makers repertoire of survival skills that is no less important than managing the books, developing the product per FDA rules, and defending themselves from pharmaceutical injury lawsuits. This craft is the Side Effects Shuffle, the art of applied science that often does not fully vet a drug before it is marketed. The dance is about mitigating health risks in medications. The shuffle, for the most part, takes place after the damage is done and after the patients hire a personal injury attorney, at Reich and Binstock or elsewhere, to help them to recover their damages. It takes an interrelationship of pharmaceutical corporate interests to address some of these serious risks. Here is one archetypal Skip to My Lou, which follows a summary of a particular drugs recent regulatory history. Bayer makes the combination oral contraceptive, or … Continue reading →