So What Did We Learn From Avandia? (Hint: The Media Are a Hazard to Public Health)

Trevor Butterworth, Huffington Post

Take several critics of the way the FDA ensures the safety of drugs, rush a flawed study into print, characterize the results as catastrophic, rope in drug regulation warriors on Capitol Hill, rant about the evils of Big Pharma, talk to a credulous, statistically-illiterate media, and voila – you have Vioxx II, except the data ultimately got in the way of the story… more

Originally published July 31, 2007

A Crusading Doctor Stumbles On His Own Words

Trevor Butterworth, Huffington Post

As another major scientific journal criticizes the methodology behind a study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) that prompted a nationwide panic over a popular diabetes drug, it turns out that the doctor who authored the study, Steven Nissen MD, delivered a blistering attack on those very methods seven years ago, when they were used by another researcher to argue that a different drug posed an equally significant health risk… more

Originally published July 10, 2007