The Pharmaceutical Industry

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

HA! A lot of the costs of bringing a new drug to market are paid for by tax dollars, NOT pharmaceutical cos. The NIH sponsors most of the research in this country. So how it unfair to a pharmaceutical company? Assholes.

[cough]Bullshit[/cough]

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

[cough]Bullshit[/cough]

I posted information about this a while ago Merc. Search the site. The NIH does fund most of the research done by pharma cos in this country. AND pharma cos DO include advertising costs in the R&D category, which is fraud.

[jinx]

Publisher consulted drug firm on journal content.

Documents tendered to a Federal Court class action reveal staff at publishing company Elsevier, which produces The Lancet, emailed pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co about its "preferred content selection" for the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine.

The publisher also admits the journal is a "single sponsored publication" where most of the content is chosen by Merck with some "input from Elsevier".


The plaintiff in the class action has alleged the journal was fake and it was simply a marketing exercise designed to promote Vioxx. The court has also heard Merck put the names of high-profile arthritis experts on the editorial board of the phoney journal without telling them they had done so. (Holy shit!)



Since these revelations, Elsevier has expressed embarrassment over its role and admitted it failed to meet its own "high standards for disclosure".

[TheMercenary]

Yea, that whole Vioxx story was the coupe de grace for exposing the BS that goes on.

[sugarpop]

OK, so here it is, yet again...

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2001/july/n..._debunks_d.php

New Report Debunks Drug Industry Claims About the Cost of New Drug Research and Development

Second Report Documents Industry's Intense Lobby and Political Contribution Campaign to Keep Prices and Profits High

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The pharmaceutical industry spends about one-fifth of what it says it spends on the research and development (R&D) of new drugs, destroying the chief argument it uses against making prescription drugs affordable to middle and low-income seniors, a Public Citizen investigation has found.

The findings are contained in a Public Citizen report, Rx R&D Myths: The Case Against the Drug Industry's R&D Scare Card.

The report reveals how major U.S. drug companies and their Washington lobby group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), have carried out a misleading campaign to scare policymakers and the public. PhRMA's central claim is that the industry needs extraordinary profits to fund "risky" and innovative research and development to discover new drugs. In fact, taxpayers are footing a significant portion of the R&D bill, which is much lower than the companies claim.

"This R&D scare card is built on myths and falsehoods that are maintained by the drug industry to block Medicare drug coverage and measures that would rein in skyrocketing drug costs," said Frank Clemente, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch.

Public Citizen based the study on an extensive review of government and industry data and a report obtained through the Freedom of Information Act from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Among the report's key findings:

¤ The actual after-tax cash outlay - what drug companies really spend on R&D for each new drug (including failures) - is approximately $110 million (in year 2000 dollars.) This is in marked contrast with the $500 million figure PhRMA frequently touts.

¤ The NIH document shows how crucial taxpayer-funded research is to the development of top-selling drugs. According to the NIH, U.S. taxpayer-funded scientists conducted at least 55 percent of the research projects that led to the discovery and development of the five top-selling drugs in 1995.

¤ Public Citizen found that, at most, about 22 percent of the new drugs brought to market in the past two decades were innovative drugs that represented important therapeutic advances. Most new drugs were "me-too" or copycat drugs that have little or no therapeutic gain over existing drugs, undercutting the industry's claim that R&D expenses are used to discover new treatments for serious and life-threatening illnesses...


There's more, click on the link...

[jinx]

Pfizer fined $2.3 billion for illegal marketing in off-label drug case

In the largest health care fraud settlement in history, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer must pay $2.3 billion to resolve criminal and civil allegations that the company illegally promoted uses of four of its drugs, including the painkiller Bextra, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
Besides Bextra, the drugs were Geodon, an antipsychotic; Zyvox, an antibiotic; and Lyrica, an anti-epileptic drug.

[jinx]

Prescribing the prescribed drugs?

But there is concern in the US that drug companies have been influencing psychiatrists over what anti-psychotic drugs to prescribe.

Whitaker pointed to academic studies in Vermont and Illinois as evidence that too many schizophrenia patients are kept on medication for too long.
In the Vermont case, patients discharged in the 1950s and 1960s were studied 30 years on.
Dr Courtenay Harding determined that one-third had completely recovered and all of those ex-patients had stopped taking anti-psychotic drugs.
"You need a paradigm of care which recognises that some percentage of patients would do better off medication and that should be built into the system," Whitaker concluded.
Suggesting the journalist was "cherry-picking" academic studies, Meltzer warned against making generalisations based on the Harding study "because there was no evidence that these people needed medication to begin with".





• In July of last year, Senator Charles Grassley demanded clarity over the finances of the American Psychiatric Association (APA)
• The US Department of Health and Human Services is investigating payments to the former head of Emory University's psychiatry department, Charles Nemeroff
• Harvard University is conducting an internal investigation into psychiatry professor Joseph Biederman, who is accused of failing to disclose payments from drug companies in full
Robert Whitaker suggests the American public is "losing faith in psychiatry as an honest profession".

[TheMercenary]

The problems in the Psych profession and industry are probably the best examples of where problems exist with big Pharm and medicine. Good post.

[Clodfobble]

What happens when Harvard Medical School issues new conflict-of-interest guidelines restricting its doctors from taking pharmaceutical company payoffs? Doctors start quitting.

[Pico and ME]

Yeah, but according to that article, not all of them are quitting over this and the ones who do may end up losing the cachet that got them the speaking jobs.

Mary Anne Rhyne, US director of media relations for Glaxo, said DuBuske is a national speaker for the company, earning about $2,500 per talk. The company picks the topic and content of the talks in the speakers bureau program, she said.

Rhyne said she is not sure whether DuBuske will be as much in demand as a speaker without the prestigious Brigham and Harvard titles.

“A lot of things would go into a decision about that,’’ she said. “Most of all, we’re looking for people who are well respected.’’

[Clodfobble]

One can hope, but I don't buy it--by definition they can no longer get a speaker with the Harvard title, so they will have to settle for someone without it, regardless.

[Pico and ME]

Yes, but then, without a prestigious title, the speaker might not be much of a draw. Hopefully.

[xoxoxoBruce]

They can still say, Dr DuBuske, Brigham doctor and Harvard professor for more than two decades.

[jinx]

Senate report links diabetes drug Avandia to heart attacks

The diabetes drug Avandia is linked with tens of thousands of heart attacks, and drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline knew of the risks for years but worked to keep them from the public, according to a Senate committee report released Saturday.

The 334-page report by the Senate Finance Committee also criticized the Food and Drug Administration, saying that the federal agency that regulates food, tobacco and medications overlooked or overrode safety concerns found by its staff.

The Senate report was developed over the past two years by committee investigators who reviewed more than 250,000 pages of documents provided by GlaxoSmithKline, the FDA and several research institutes. Committee investigators also conducted numerous interviews and phone calls with GlaxoSmithKline, the FDA and anonymous whistleblowers.


According to the Senate report:
• FDA scientists estimated in July 2007 that Avandia was associated with approximately 83,000 heart attacks since the drug came to market.
"Had GSK considered Avandia's potential increased cardiovascular risk more seriously when the issue was first raised in 1999 ... some of these heart attacks may have been avoided," the report states.
• GlaxoSmithKline undertook attempts to undermine information critical of Avandia.

[jinx]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

They can still say, Dr DuBuske, Brigham doctor and Harvard professor for more than two decades.

Or something like: Director of the CDC from 2002-2009.

Dr. Julie Gerberding Named President of Merck Vaccines