A Great Week for Blogs

Lots of good stuff in the mental health/general healthcare blog world that I've not linked, such as...

• Health Care Renewal's post on the study in the Journal of the American Medical Association that found many MD's get a lot of cash from drug companies. In addition, companies are also covering up many of these payments as "trade secrets." For more on this, you must head to HCR's nice post on the topic, which provides many interesting details. Oh, and psychiatry appears to be the biggest recipient of cash. Congrats!
  
• Another instance of astroturfing was uncovered this week -- the head of an organization (Elzora Brown of the Breast Cancer Resource Committee), who serves as the head of a patient advocacy group has apparently been making some serious cash, courtesy of a huge influx of drug industry money. Health Care Renewal was all over it. AHRP has also weighed in on the topic.
• PharmaGiles notes how Big Pharma gets its way through effective lobbying.
• John Mack at the Pharma Marketing Blog noted that the FDA's chief ain't too keen on whistleblowers. Looks like David Graham had best watch his back? Among other good recent posts, Mack had one about the loophole in the FDA's now allegedly tough guidelines on conflicts of interest among its advisors.
  
• Seroxat Secrets is becoming one of my favorite blogs. The site points out how GlaxoSmithKline repeatedly settles lawsuits without ever, of course, admitting any wrongdoing, and with the condition that everyone keep hush-hush about the details surrounding the case. The post is aptly titled Buying Our Silence and I liked it quite a bit.
• Last but certainly not least, Furious Seasons quite aptly notes, at length, how the "in-betweeners" are increasingly being diagnosed as having a variety of mental illnesses. He's referring to the kids who are in-between the goody-goody, straight A, never get in trouble crowd and those who are lighting the school on fire and having hallucinations. If you occasionally get in trouble and are obnoxious, does that make you ADHD and/or bipolar, and, more importantly, does this mean you would allegedly benefit from treatment. The market keeps expanding...

Great work to all of the above and to the many others who I did not get around to this week. Have a great weekend, all!