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Viewers of the network nightly newscasts are bombarded constantly with advertising touting the benefits of brand-name prescription drugs. So Tyndall Report applauds the editorial side when it encourages countervailing skepticism. It is important for their own credibility that the network news divisions should not seem to be promotional arms of the pharmaceutical industry.
In an ABC News Investigates feature, in-house physician Richard Besser pointed to Merck's Fosamax brand. It is prescribed for osteoporosis to prevent the bone loss that can lead to fractures of the hip. Yet prolonged treatment can also make bones brittle. Dr Besser offered anecdotes of snapping thigh bones after eight years of Fosamax use and pointed to six words in the fine print in the musculoskeletal warning section--"low energy femoral shaft and subtroconteric fractures." Yet the Food & Drug Administration has never made an effort to inform physicians. Declared Dr Besser: "I was shocked by the lack of attention this has received by the federal government."
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