direct-to-consumer marketing of FDA approved drugs...

Whitney Houston's death has given the world another opportunity to look at FDA approved drugs in this country.  The 'news' reports are always biased; particularly when the death results from FDA approved drugs, but perhaps it is due to a Conflict of Interest---a whole hell of a lot of money is spent on direct-to-consumer marketing of FDA approved drugs...  

A couple of doctors minimizing the ethical responsibility of doctors and the FDA

NOT ETHICAL and NOT 'NEWS.'

It's just crappy journalism.

The doctor that killed Michael Jackson got a few freaking years in prison...The docs who prescribe multiple psychiatric drugs concomitantly even though prescribed concomitantly the drugs are KNOWN to be fatal, ineffective, or ill-advised; are allowed to continue "practicing medicine" after actually causing a recklessly causing a patient's death. Most deaths caused by the adverse effects of  psychiatric drugs are classified as "natural" deaths. Acts of violence, from FDA approved drugs,  including suicide and homicide, are rarely reported to the Adverse Events Reporting system...

via Plos ONE:

Prescription Drugs Associated with Reports of Violence Towards Others

a couple of excerpts:

Results

We identified 1527 cases of violence disproportionally reported for 31 drugs. Primary suspect drugs included varenicline (an aid to smoking cessation), 11 antidepressants, 6 sedative/hypnotics and 3 drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The evidence of an association was weaker and mixed for antipsychotic drugs and absent for all but 1 anticonvulsant/mood stabilizer. Two or fewer violence cases were reported for 435/484 (84.7%) of all evaluable drugs suggesting that an association with this adverse event is unlikely for these drugs.

Conclusions

Acts of violence towards others are a genuine and serious adverse drug event associated with a relatively small group of drugs. Varenicline, which increases the availability of dopamine, and antidepressants with serotonergic effects were the most strongly and consistently implicated drugs. Prospective studies to evaluate systematically this side effect are needed to establish the incidence, confirm differences among drugs and identify additional common features. here

This may explain why we have so many drugs on the market that are fatal:

The FDA is there to serve the drug industry, not the public says Dr. David Graham of the FDA

hat tip: PharmaGossip