Monthly Archives July 31, 2016

Here's a forgotten chapter from pharmaceutical history. The acne drug, Accutane (isotretinoin), manufactured by Roche Pharmaceuticals, in addition to being associated with (as I wrote in prior posts) suicide,...

I was reading the NY Times this weekend when I saw a story about a celebrity dermatologist who had a SWAT team descend on her office and arrest her for illegal use of narcotics (Percocet). Seems she had...

Oops! I forgot, my employer, Emory University, actually requires me to get a flu shot. So I guess that's not really true. In 2008 I was asked to give a talk at Emory Hospital on "Why I'm Not Getting a Flu...

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  I was interviewed this morning by WLS-TV in Chicago about  the case of a man who admitted to killing his dermatologist, claiming that the acne medication Accutane made him do it. I referred to our...

Merck joins the rosters of pharmaceutical companies like Hoffmann La Roche that make drugs that, if they don't kill you, at least will drive you crazy. Roche has specialized for years in making drugs with...

Fluoroquinolones, including Levaquin, Ciprofloxacin, and Avelox, are a class of antibiotics used to treat a range of infections. These drugs have a range of unfortunate possible side effects, including the...

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During my residency days Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) like fluoxetine (Prozac, Sarafem), paroxetine (Paxil), fluvoxamine (Luvox), citalopram (Celexa), and sertraline (Zoloft), were pushed as...