TV Documentaries

Join Robb as he travels to Italy to meet Professor Roberto Melcangi and his research team at the University of Milan. For the first time, we take you inside the lab to see the cutting-edge equipment, meet the PhD students assisting in this vital work, and hear directly from Professor Melcangi in an exclusive one-on-one interview.

Oklahoma is at the heart of a landmark legal battle as Dr. Regan Nichols faces charges for second-degree murder after allegedly overprescribing opioids, leading to fatal overdoses. This documentary highlights the devastating impact of the opioid crisis on families and communities, exploring the role of doctors and pharmaceutical companies in fueling addiction.

The placebo effect is a phenomenon that dates back to the beginnings of medicine. Today, revolutionary techniques not only make us rethink the relationship between our body and mind, but also raise questions about modern treatments.

In a career spanning more than twenty years, Bernard Dalbergue has learned everything there is to know about pharmaceutical laboratories. At the beginning of 2011, he decided to quit this world, with its practices and its lies. Above all, he decided to reveal to us everything he knew about his employer: the international drug company Merck. With him as our guide, we will discover how their labs engage in rigging certain clinical trials, and misleading the international medical authorities. And, finally, putting the lives of millions of people worldwide at risk. With the sole aim of constantly increasing profits.

Panorama examines whether the current generation of antidepressant drugs have lived up to their promises, following patients who have suffered serious side effects.

In a career spanning more than twenty years, Bernard Dalbergue has learned everything there is to know about pharmaceutical laboratories. At the beginning of 2011, he decided to quit this world, with its practices and its lies. Above all, he decided to reveal to us everything he knew about his employer: the international drug company Merck. Discover how their labs engage in rigging certain clinical trials, and misleading the international medical authorities. And, finally, putting the lives of millions of people worldwide at risk. With the sole aim of constantly increasing profits.

Big Pharma: Market Failure explores the problem of extreme drug costs in the US and how drug prices impact the public, businesses and the overall US economy.

Although antidepressants are prescribed with increasing frequency, their efficacy is the subject of debate. It's known that placebos can be just as effective in cases of mild-to-moderate depression. So, what's the impact on patients? How can such controversial medication be so successful?

Most of the world's pharmaceuticals are produced by a handful of large corporations, so-called Big Pharma. They're richer and more powerful than ever. In some cases, they can even call the shots on governmental health policies. This documentary brings together patients, whistleblowers, lawyers, doctors and politicians, as well as representatives of the industry.

How much is a human life worth? An innovative cancer therapy promises to save lives. But it is extremely expensive. Will the insurance companies pay for it? What is the manufacturer's return on investment? And do lobbyists drive up prices?

Pharma execs used strip clubs, broke FDA laws to boost opioid sales. A former sales VP for a pharmaceutical company was sentenced to prison tells 60 Minutes he bribed doctors to prescribe fentanyl drugs. Bill Whitaker reports.

The Age of Anxiety examines what anxiety is, and how and why it is being re-defined by medical and pharmaceutical industries.

Why the drug industry has to change. How is it possible that the drug industry is deciding about the prices of medicines without being transparent about production costs? Is the drug industry more criminal than any other industry? Also, if so, how is the drug industry taking advantage of its position? So what does the way the drug industry works have for consequences for the whole health sector?

Another investigation into the DEA's response to the opioid epidemic again finds investigators who hit a brick wall in Washington.

Joe Rannazzisi says drug distributors pumped opioids into American communities — and industry lobbyists and Congress derailed the DEA's efforts to stop it.

One in 10 Aussies on prescription painkillers are addicted. 'We have a system set up where it is cheaper and quicker and easier for me to write a script for [painkillers] than it is to support my patients to go to hydrotherapy, physiotherapy, exercise physiologists. It's a broken system that drives the prescribing.'

Shelley Jofre investigates if a rare side effect of commonly prescribed anti-depressant SSRI has played a part in a number of killings including the mass murder at the premiere of a Batman film in Colorado in 2012.

The hidden story of how benzodiazepines can both maim and kill. The serious crippling physical side effects of these drugs can last for years after the medication is stopped, possibly permanently. It is compared to the Thalidomide scandal.

Pharmaceutical companies are paying the highest fines in U.S. history for illegal marketing of drugs. Did aggressive marketing tactics influence doctors to prescribe drugs which consumers may not have even needed? Program 1007. LawJournalTV.com.

As evidence emerges that some common antidepressants are linked to heart defects in babies, the programme asks how much we really know about the safety of medicines women take while pregnant.

The Antidepressant Era, the movie, opens with some of the hype around SSRIs, has astonishing footage of Roland Kuhn and Alan Broadhurst, two of the key people behind the discovery of imipramine, and outlines the overthrow of the benzodiazepines and their replacement by antidepressants.

How to Sell a Disease: Big Pharma Selling Drugs for Fake Illnesses. To sell a cure, first, you need to sell the disease. According to some research, pharmaceutical companies are medicalising normal conditions, like menopause, promoting non-existent diseases, and transforming mild problems into serious conditions that need treatment. Disease branding can destigmatize shameful problems and encourage people to seek treatment. But it can also put healthy people at risk, leading to them taking medicines with potentially dangerous side effects. CASH INVESTIGATION Series 1 Episode 1, 2012. Directed by Laurent Richard.

Harvard scientist Irving Kirsch says the drugs used to treat depression are effective, but for many, it's not the active ingredient that's making people feel better. It's the placebo effect.

Dorrit Cato tells how her daughter Luise died while committed to the locked ward of a Danish psychiatric hospital. The doctors attributed Luise's death to 'lifestyle illnesses', but Dorrit acquired Luise's medical journal and found out that Luise had 4 times the recommended dosage of psychiatric medication in her body at the time of her death.

Drug company whistle-blower Cheryl Eckard tells Scott Pelley about her experience trying to fix problems at a pharmaceutical factory that made her a key figure in a federal lawsuit and a multimillionaire.

Whistleblower Cheryl Eckard explains to Scott Pelley why she called Glaxo officials and recorded the phone call. She says after the call she contacted the FDA.

Shelley Jofre investigates claims that one of Britain's biggest drugs companies misled doctors who prescribed Seroxat to patients suffering from depression even though its own clinical trial showed an increased rate of suicides.

The worldwide pharmaceutical market is dominated by the so-called Big-Pharma, which is composed by no more than 10 pharmaceutical companies based in USA or Europe. Thanks to the TRIPS Agreements, created by the WTO (World Trade Organization) in 1995, medicines is treated like any other goods. This means that the pharmaceutical companies owning the large number of patents on drugs worldwide can act as monopolists deciding and imposing the prizes. Further more they can decide the type of research to be made, without taking into consideration the needs of developing countries.

The investigation reveals how the medicines regulator, the MHRA, has failed to take seriously patients' concerns about one of the most widely-prescribed antidepressants, Seroxat, and how it has missed crucial safety information about the drug that's been in its archive for over a decade.

ITV West Eye View - Hard to Swallow

Panorama revealed the dark and shocking side of Seroxat, one of the world's favourite anti-depressants. The feedback to that film was unprecedented with thousands of people contacting the programme.

Seroxat is one of the world's most successful anti-depressants but, as Shelley Joffre reveals, there are those who believe the drug is highly addictive, resulting in some claiming serious withdrawal symptoms, such as self-harm and suicide.

Explore the clash between medicine and money in the changing world of American healthcare. The viewer is taken inside one of the most successful, and most aggressive, HMOs to study the effects of its profit-driven philosophy on patient care. Managed care has brought health care costs under control, but at what cost to consumers?

Travel to the Prozac capital of the world, Wenatchee, Washington, and examine the philosophical and societal implications of Prozac, the most prescribed antidepressant in America.

FRONTLINE goes behind the labels and hype to consider the economic, social and ethical questions that arise when big business is mixed with human suffering and a large dose of advertising. The development, approval and marketing of a new drug can take from 7 to 10 years and cost up to $125 million. To insure adequate monetary return, drug companies have turned to marketing techniques that include celebrity endorsement and promotion that sometimes avoid mention of dangerous side effects.

ITV 1988 episode of The Cook Report - Benzodiazepine Documentary. Benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome—often abbreviated to benzo withdrawal—is the cluster of symptoms that emerge when a person who has taken benzodiazepines, either medically or recreationally, and has developed a physical dependence undergoes dosage reduction or discontinuation. Development of physical dependence and/or addiction and the resulting withdrawal symptoms, some of which may last for years, may result from either drug-seeking behaviors or from taking the medication as prescribed.

1977 ABC special on psychiatric treatment including an interview with Dr. Peter Breggin.