Britain Takes Action

An urgent meeting of the Group was convened on 4 June 2003 to consider clinical trial data which had just been received by the MHRA on the safety of paroxetine in the treatment of major depressive disorder in children and adolescents. Child and adolescent psychiatrists were invited to join the Group as visiting experts for the discussion of the data. The advice of the group informed CSM s announcement on 10 June, that paroxetine was contraindicated in patients under the age of 18 with major depressive disorder. 

Seroxat is now contraindicated in patients with major depressive disorder under 18 years of age. 

GSK would never be compelled to issue a similar warning to U.S. healthcare providers, contraindicating the drug for the treatment of depression in those under age 18. 

Great Britain went on to ban all of the SSRIs for use in depression in children except for Prozac, mistakenly giving credence to two clinical trials of Prozac conduced by Graham Emsley, a close associate of Eli Lilly (chapter 6). 

Canada s regulatory agency, Health Canada (2004), followed with a warning to patients of all ages taking the newer antidepressants (SSRIs, 

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All the while, Churchill continued to pound the Ministry of Supply with threats, instructions, exhortations and advice, normally in the form of Action This Day memoranda. By the end of 1941 he had transformed the situation. The Chiefs of Staff were told on 28 December that Britain could now take offensive action with mustard gas at five hours notice.22 Four Blenheim and three Wellington squadrons were trained in the use of aerial spray. 15 per cent of the British bomber force could be employed in chemical warfare. By the spring of 1942—thanks chiefly to the extraordinary time and trouble Churchill had gone to - Britain had almost 20,000 tons of poison gas. 

This raises a question at what point did mihtary scientists decide, either in their own mind or collectively and informally—since anything else might have exposed them to disciplinary action— when a specific trial was too dangerous to warrant full and frank disclosure of all risks, as the trial would otherwise, so they believed, not take place Attempting to rationalize, and indeed historicize, highly subjective decision-making processes among scientists in one of the most secretive facihties in Britain, which effectively... 

The second circumstance in which OHS committees have some impact is when they are backed by strong union organisation. Under these conditions consultation can at times become more akin to bargaining, with implicit or explicit threats of industrial action if management does not take the necessary action. This was Dawson s finding in relation to safety committees in Britain. In my own work it was notable that the most effective joint committee I encountered was on a building site with a strong union presence (see Chapter 9). 

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