In December, 2009, Bloomberg News published an investigative report by David Evans reported, "Big Pharma’s Crime Spree" documenting major court settlements: "Pfizer, Eli Lilly & Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and four other drug companies have paid a total of $7 billion in fines and penalties. Six of the companies…
A front page article in The New York Times raises the long-overdue alarms about the forced drugging of American children–in particular poor children who are condemned to ingest toxic neuroleptics (a.k.a. ‘atypical antipsychotics) at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. These drugs qualify under…
Rather than having a deterrent effect, the number of Big Pharma high profile criminal settlements is increasing and the settlements are getting bigger.
It is difficult to comprehend, why the Obama administration, which has made cost-cutting a legislative centerpiece of healthcare reform, would remove the most potent, financial penalty in its existing legal arsenal from its settlement with Pfizer.
Pfizer, the world’s largest drug manufacturer has the dubious distinction of being a corporate "repeat offender…"
Two high ranking FDA officials’ conflicts of interest have led one to resign, the other is under investigation by the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services:
Today’s New York Times reports (below) that "court documents provide a paper trail showing that Wyeth contracted with a medical communications company to outline articles, draft them and then solicit top physicians to sign their names, even though many of the doctors contributed little or no writing."
ACRE’s mission is to persuade physicians that MORE rather than less industry involvement in Continuing Medical Education programs is good for patients–much as industry’s "Harry and Louise" ads were aimed at convincing the public that universal healthcare was BAD for them.
Unless the overall treatment and services provided to schizophrenia patients in Finland is unique and especially protective—which the authors do not suggest—their claimed findings of lowered mortality rates for antipsychotic drug users are belied by a consistent body of evidence.
But FDA says keep taking the "medicines."
The FDA’s expanded marketing approval process for antipsychotics, highly toxic drugs, is unaffected by evidence uncovered by the US Justice Department showing that the studies submitted by drug manufacturers were often flawed, if not fraudulent.
"The story’s pretty clear, and pretty embarrassing for the profession of psychiatry, which has allowed itself to be led by marketing," says Dr. Robert Rosenheck, Yale.
