Bayer recently announced that it is going to spend $20 million for an advertising campaign to reverse the effects of its ad campaign promoting the oral birth control pill, Yaz, as effective for the ups and downs of daily life as well as zits and other skin blemishes and weight...

I don't care if it may give me breast cancer or heart disease. Thanks, APHRODITE Study Team!

APHRODITE Study Team? ROTFL!

I swear to God I am not making up this goofy study name.

I wonder if the study investigators ever got horny...

Well this weekend was All Soul's Day, so I thought it appropriate that our own four horsemen of the apocalypse are ushering in our day of doom which will come in the form of the Supreme Court hearing the case of Wyeth v Levine this week, described as the 'Business...

Back to my field of psychiatry, where I have identified a new syndrome for DSM-5, which I called Internet Mediated Childhood Abuse (IMCA).

This syndrome is associated with depression, loss of self esteem, feelings of unreality and loss of interest in normal online activities.

My 11 year old son and...

This week there are a couple of related articles, one in bmj showing that half of doctors prescribe their patients placebos, and the other in Journal of Empirical Legal Studies showing that 23% of patients on statins were women without heart disease for whom there is no evidence of benefit.

The drug maker Wyeth has issued a press release on the topic of preemption, as related to the case before the Supreme Court of Levine v. Wyeth. Simply put, preemption strips away the rights of consumers to have redress in court if they have a toxic or fatal side...

I am watching the Obama-McCain debate on TV right now and I thought I should offer some 'medical perspective'.

First of all, my disclosures are that I hope that Obama wins.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Okay, so said.

Obama said he wanted a universal...

We've known for some time that no one can predict the stock market, and that the efforts of stock pickers routinely come out worse than chance. Now we are learning that no one has a clue about what to do about the current financial meltdown, or where the Dow Jones...

Here's a forgotten chapter from pharmaceutical history. The acne drug, Accutane, manufactured by Roche Pharmaceuticals, has been associated with hundreds of birth defects. Since 2005 the iPLEDGE program has required that patients, doctors, and pharmacists register and that patients prove they are on birth control before they can be prescribed...

In a prior post I discussed the topic of blogmersion, or the urge to connect with others, which is easily facilitated by the internet. I define blogmersion (a term I just made up) as the use of weblogs to connect with other people and even past times and places...

I had some time I didn't expect to have yesterday since my anticipated appearance on Fox's Mike and Juliet Show to talk about the link between the acne medication Accutane and depression and suicide was canceled, so I thought I'd write about how my day was going so far....

While Americans sit mesmerized by Sarah Palin clapping into the microphone and rambling on about Greek Columns while her daughter wipes down her youngest child's hair with her own spit, they are utterly unaware of yet another attempt by the Republican machine to steal even more of their civil rights...

Salim Hamdan was a driver for Osama Bin Ladin who recently went on trial for terrorist activities. He seemed to have no interest in the trial proceedings, being only interested in being moved from cell block 4 (where he was kept in isolation) to cell block 5 (where he...

Well it's back from summer vacation and reviewing what happened while I was away and today there was an article in the New York Times about the potential for increased risk of fracture with bisphosphonate drugs like Fosamax (alendronate) used for the treatment of osteoporosis. I previously wrote...

The vaccine for the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine, Gardasil, was mandated for all young girls in Texas in 2006 and there were proposals for mandated vaccination in a growing number of other states. But a flurry of publicity about conflicts of interests by those who were pushing it in...

I was sitting in my car dealership today waiting to get service on my car and working on my laptop while the television was droning on in front of me. I mean this is one of the rare times when I watch TV without the benefit of TiVo to pause...

I shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach.

You may have read that heart disease is under diagnosed in women, and that they are missing potential treatments that could save their lives. For instance, a couple of years ago Newsweek reported that heart...

Pharmaceutical companies are great about turning out prescription medications with hip designer colors like deep blue, lavender, brightly colored red, and let's not forget 'the purple pill' (Nexium, for those of you without a TV). Those lovely colors make us say 'Yummy!' and increase our desire to wolf them down...

Remember that commercial where the graceful but aging woman is talking about how she got shorter? And that if you had the same problem you should 'talk to your doctor'? What she wants you to tell your doctor is that you want a prescription for Fosamax, the bisphosphonate medication for...

I was watching public TV with my wife a couple of years ago when a researcher was being interviewed about the Beta Carotene and Retinol Efficacy Trial (CARET), in which 18,314 smokers took either beta carotene and Vitamin A or a placebo. He embarrassedly stated that the beta carotene...