The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "medical research studies" ...
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Are these diet pills deadly?
Glamour reports on a decade-long lack of action by the FDA against the drug ephedra. The writers charge the drug industry with stalling the government on both state and federal levels. The story also exposes the ways in which some manufacturers purportedly proved their products were safe and effective, documenting how little research had ever been done on ephedra-based supplements and debunking the single study most often cited by the industry. The story also talks about how marketers continued to use flimsy evidence to make claims about their products efficacy....claims that were unanimously voted to be false and scientifically impossible by the Federal Trade Commission.
Tags: ephedra; diet supplements; U.S. Food and Drug Administration; ephedra-based supplements; Federal Trade Commission; Rand Corporation; Health and Human Services; herbal supplement; FDA; National Football League; National Collegiate Athletic Association; American Medical Association; consumer-advocacy groups; Xenadrine; Hydroxycut; Metabolife International Inc.; Metabolife; fen-phen; Dietary supplement Health and Education Act; DSHEA; Public Citizen's Health Research Group; Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders; diet pill; Ephedra Education Council; AER; adverse event report; Center for Drug Evaluation and Research
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A Study In Ethics
What happens when medical research is conducted without informed consent? The Virginian Pilot details the story of a controversial research experiment conducted by the Eastern Virginia Medical School. The experiment, that required nearly 200 preschoolers to be exposed to a genetically engineered substance, had to be ceased after one parent complained about it being done without their informed consent. The report includes thoughts and opinions by medical ethicists, academicians and the EVMS staff themselves.
Tags: Medicine; Research; Ethics; child care; parent
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The Treatment: A Medical Researcher Pays for Challenging Drug Industry Funding. He Said Antibiotics Weren't Good for Kids' Earaches; His Peers Found Otherwise. Now, His view Gains Ground.
Scientist Eric Cantekin worked with fellow researcher Dr. Charles Bluestone on a study that compared the effectiveness of antibiotics in fighting ear infections. Bluestone financed the study by appealing to various pharmaceutical companies. Cantekin claims that the study was altered so that the results would be favorable to the pharmaceutical industry; Bluestone denied it. Now, however, there is some evidence to support Cantekin; The Wall Street Journal examines the controversy.
Tags: earache; pharmaceutical company; pharmaceutical industry; research fraud; antibiotics; amoxicillin; medicine
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Testing, Testing
West magazine found that in the last few years, opportunities for potential human volunteers for therapy and drug trials have boomed. Yet, simultaneously, Americans have also taken more responsibility for their health care.
Tags: medical research; human guinea pigs; medical research studies; medical research subjects; clinical trials; human volunteers; ethics; AZT
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Prevnar: A vaccine Investigation
From IRE Contest entry form: "Prevnar is a 7-valent pneumococcalvaccine approved for use in infants in February 2000. At close to $240 for the four-dose regiment, Prevnar is the most expensive vaccine ever manufactured. When correspondent Valeri Williams and Producer Meridith Schucker began their investigation, over 10 million doses had already been distributed. At the time, consumers and the national media referred to Prevnar as the 'ear infection vaccine,' though it was not studied or ever approved to guard against ear infections. And no one on the government approval committees or the medical establishment stepped forward to correct the misinformation...Through interviews with numerous doctors, FDA and CDC representatives, consumer advocates, congressmen, parents and medical researchers, some startling facts emerged."
Tags: TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; Medicine; health; pharmaceuticals; Prevnar
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"Your genetic destiny for sale"
Several ventures have been launched over recent years to "sift through the DNA of specific populations, in hope of identifying the underlying genetic causes of those diseases most likely to kill us. The researchers, pharmaceutical companies executives and venture capitalists involved are all betting that recent advances in biotech and computing have made it possible to take a few hundred or thousand victims of a disease, analyze their DNA, compare it to the DNA of healthy individuals, and identify the salient differences -- those genetic variations that result in illness on the one hand and health on the other...If these efforts succeed, they could revolutionize the nature of drug discovery and medical treatment." However, this type of research, called population genomics, brings up a host of ethical issues. For instance, some past studies use a standard of "presumed consent" for subject's participation in the study, as opposed to the "informed consent" required for most research.
Tags: population genomics; Gemini Genomics; Newfound Genomics; DNA; genetics; deCODE genetics; Iceland; UmanGenomics; medical ethics
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Medical Research: Can we Trust it?
The Hartford Courant examines possible conflicts of interest inherent in academic medical research now that such research is funded more by corporate, rather than government, dollars. The Courant reveals that many academics at such schools as Harvard and UCLA receive their funding from the very companies that designed the drugs they are studying. Thus, there is some question as to the trustworthiness of the data these academics collect. "A Courant review of more than 40 recently developed drugs, as well as interviews with dozens of researchers across the nation, has found that scientists are asking questions -- and getting answers -- that neatly fit the agenda of their corporate sponsors."
Tags: academic medical research; drugs; corporations; government; funding; money; UCLA; Harvard; students; universities; colleges; medicines; health; safety; conflicts of interest
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A Medical Researcher Pays For Challenging Drug Industry Funding
The Journal chronicles University of Pittsburgh's Erdem Cantekin's battle against convention. The director of research declared a war of ethics on the university's Medical Center where he had a promising future. Dr. Cantekin believes that in 1986 a fellow researcher manipulated the results of a study on children's antibiotics to benefit drug companies. The move brought Dr Cantekin's career down and he is now known as a "trouble making whistle blower."
Tags: medical research; antibiotics; children; ear infection; drug companies
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Drug Trials Hide Conflicts for Doctors
New York Times ten month investigation into the medical research industry. Finds that drug companies offer large payments to doctors to recruit patients for studies, and test companies often use unqualified doctors to conduct the studies. Also a series of related follow up articles.
Tags: health care; doctors; medical tests; medicine; drug trials; insurance
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No title (id: 13912)
The series examined pharmaceutical research on humans. If found that more than half the researchers inspected by the Food and Drug Administration since 1977 were cited by inspectors for failing to clearly disclose the experimental nature of their work. And, decades after notorious syphilis experiments on blacks at Tuskegee, Ala., and radiation studies on civilians during the Cold War, the government is still in the business of conducting and paying for medical tests on unwary Americans. The series also revealed that medical ethics committees, considered the front line in protecting patients, are swamped by swelling number of studies. Some spend about two minutes reviewing a proposed experiment. The reporters discovered the existence of the FDA's "blacklist" of 82 scientists banned from experimenting with "investigational new drugs" on people. (December 15 - 18, 1996)
Tags: Epstein Sloat CAR Drug trials Contest entry FOIA 42 pgs.