AstraZeneca Changed Wikipedia Entry
6 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // August 15th, 2007 // 12:51 pm
What was the change? A line was omitted about the Seroquel antipsychotic and links to suicidal thoughts and behavior in teenagers. That’s the allegation by Virgil Griffith, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology, who developed a program to track changes made in Wikipedia. And he’s found numerous companies tweak entries all the time, The Times of London reports.
His WikiScanner site reveals changes to the online encyclopaedia - which anyone can edit, right? - by linking edits back to the computers from which they emanate using each computer’s unique IP address. Griffith, 24, tells The Times he created the site “to create minor public relations disasters for companies and organizations I dislike.”
His site can’t identify individuals altering Wikipedia entries, but can show an edit was made by a person with access to a company network. “Technically, we don’t know whether it came from an agent of that company, however, we do know that edit came from someone with access to their network,” Griffith says on his site.
The Times writes that, according to other Wikipedia pages disclosed by his Wikiscanner site, references to claims that Seroquel, which allegedly made teenagers “more likely to think about harming or killing themselves,” were deleted by a user of a computer registered to the drugmaker.
In May, the FDA proposed that makers of all antidepressant antipsychotic meds – including Seroquel – update labeling to include warnings…
…over increased risks of suicidal thinking and behavior in young adults during early treatment. The proposed warnings would emphasise that other serious psychiatric disorders are themselves the most important causes of suicide.
UPDATE: An AstraZeneca spokesman just called to say this: “We are investigating the change made on July 11 and once we find out more, we can let you know….Patient safety is a priority and we make it a point to provide complete and accurate information to people who need to know - patients, doctors and anyone else.”
Lisa Van Syckel
Ed,
It should be noted that Seroquel is an “antipsychotic” not an “antidepressant”……….
The prescribing of antipsychotics have increased 117% in girls and 71% in boys according to Medco Health Solutions.
Clearly Pharma wants to protect profits while jeopardizing the safety of our Nations Children…..
We can always give these folks a free trip to China!!!!!
shade
A little confusion - in the first paragraph you say “Virgil Smith” but subsequently refer to him as “Griffith” and the tags say “Virgil Griffith.” Would you clarify that please? Thx!
Lisa Van Syckel
Attention Dr. Galson,
Seroquel is an “antipsychotic” not an “antidepressant”.The Public is aware of that,WHY AREN’T YOU……
I would like to know who at FDA approved AstraZeneca’s glossy 5 page ad in people Magazine?The ad leads a consumer to believe that Seroquel,an “antipsychotic” is an antidepressant and does not have suicidal and violent side effects.
Elizabeth Hensley
Antipsychotics lower dopamine. Since much depression is caused by too low neurochemicals such as dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine, it is no wonder lowering dopamine might make someone suicidal. Many people with depression are put on antipsychotics first by doctors that do not know what they are doing. Other mistakes they make putting someone with depression on a minor tranquillizer such as Valium, again because they do not know what they are doing. Then because these do not help the patient, the patient becomes antidrug and misses opportunities for real help. This happened to me. And my depression was being caused by untreated sleep apnea and hypothyroidism anyway. If those problems had been caught soon enough before the stress caused hippocampus damage I might not have even needed an antidepressant. (Those at least grow back hippocampus tissue while antipsychotics won’t).
sid
Have you been to Wal-Mart lately - antipsychotics for kids should increase more than 100%. Much work still to do.
Elizabeth, everyone here can tell you that we don’t know how depression is caused - quit bringing your science to this crowd. And even if they could cure depression they wouldn’t - the doctors would stop it because office visits would go down. We need to keep everyone as sick as possible. The only problem is some of those stupid academic types keep trying to cure things - docs and pharma can’t pay them off forever.
“You don’t call retarded people retards. You call your friends retard when they are acting retarded” - Mike Scott
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[...] there are rules for engagement. Last summer AstraZeneca got in trouble for seeming to minimize the risk of Seroquel to teenagers by removing “Despite a general National [...]