Is this journalism that makes a difference?

Some media campaigns, such as the Sunday Times' on thalidomide, have been more successful than others, says the British Medical Journal which asks where does Panorama on paroxetine stand?

May 25, 2003 - Source http://bmj.com

Whenever its topic is medico-scientific, BBC Television's Panorama can induce the odd feeling of having slipped back in time. Back to a period before the advent of evidence based medicine; before, indeed, the advent of science itself. Back to a world where basic concepts such as risk, probability, coincidence, biological variation, and the nature of cause and effect seem unaccountably to have vanished—and left behind only anecdote, suspicion, and inference. I had that feeling last October when watching Panorama on "The Secrets of Seroxat"

Last weekend's follow up, "Seroxat: E-mails from the Edge" (BBC 1, 11 May at 10 15 pm), was prompted by the unprecedented response to its predecessor: a record 1400 emails and 67 000 phone calls.

The earlier programme told of a shifty, rapacious drug company pursuing profit at the expense of patient welfare: a charge that even the tightest of regulations will never completely defuse if the industry is to operate commercially.

The new programme was the one that Panorama should have made first time round. It concentrated on something less dramatic but no less important: the inability of drug companies, doctors, and patients to communicate with one another.

One of the issues was Seroxat or paroxetine's capacity to induce addiction, which is alleged by many patients but denied by manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline. As the company's psychiatrist, Dr Alastair Benbow, slugged it out with Panorama's Shelley Jofre in the first programme it was clear that they were using the same word in different ways.

A strict medical definition of addiction is much tighter than its everyday meaning. It took the second programme to explore the obvious potential for confusion, and the consequent inadequacy of the information given to patients.

To read the rest of this article go to: http://bmj.com

See also:
May 24: Chair of Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency welcomes new inquiry into SSRI's
May 12: Seroxat manufacturer hits back on BBC's Panorama programme against the drug's addiction and suicide links - "Anybody who suffers side effects of any sort I feel every sympathy for, but that does have to be balanced by the enormous benefit that is seen by many millions of patients around the world" - Dr Alastair Benbow, head of European clinical psychiatry at GlaxoSmithKline.
> What did you think of the programme? Let us know by email. Please give your name, profession and place of work
May 10: Better antidepressant prescribing is associated with fewer suicides - British Medical Journal paper by researchers in Australia
May 10: 'Tricyclics and SSRIs are equally effective in primary care' - concludes British Medical Journal paper
May 10: Co-proxamol overdose is an important means of suicide - claims British Medical Journal paper, co-authored by Prof Keith Hawton
May 10: Unknown unknowns in suicide and depression - comment by British Medical Journal editor Richard Smith.
May 10: GPs accused of not reporting Seroxat suicides - reports the Guardian
May 3: Seroxat maker abandons 'no addiction' claim - reports the Guardian
May 3: The problem with drugs - British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy presses home what it believes is the limited efficacy of anti-depressants.
March 30: SSRIs drug review halted over GlaxoSmithKline share links - reports the Guardian
Oct 20: BMJ review on Panorama's "The Secrets of Seroxat" - how plausible was this documentary on the addictive component to Seroxat?

Other links: www.benzo.org.uk. - To get a sense of the breadth and severity of patients' complaints of Seroxat and other anti-depressants and tranquillisers.

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