The Pharmaceutical "Business with Disease"
Up to date news and comment about the "Business with Disease".
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March 8, 2010
Anti-depressants bring higher risk of developing cataracts
Some anti-depressant drugs are associated with an increased chance of developing cataracts, according to a new statistical study by researchers at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute and McGill University. The study, based on a database of more than 200,000 Quebec residents aged 65 and older, showed statistical relationships between a diagnosis of cataracts or cataract surgery and the class of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), as well as between cataracts and specific drugs within that class.
Read article at physorg.com
March 5, 2010
Decisive Safety Action Needed on Methylphenidate (Ritalin, Concerta)
According to a recent article by Janne Larsson, pharmaceutical companies producing methylphenidate-containing psychiatric drugs are manoeuvring to prevent long term safety studies on the effects of those products.
Read article on the La Leva di Archimede website (Italy)
March 5, 2010
Over Six Hundred and Counting - Paxil Birth Defect Cases
Since Paxil came on the market in 1992, there have been three separate types of failure to warn lawsuits filed against GlaxoSmithKline over Paxil; birth defects, suicide, and addiction. Roughly 150 suicide cases were settled for an average of about $2 million, and about 300 cases involving suicide attempts were settled for an average of $300,000, according to a December 14, 2009 report by Bloomberg News. Glaxo paid an average of about $50,000 each to resolve about 3,200 cases linking Paxil to addiction problems. The drug giant has also paid about $400 million to end antitrust, fraud and design claims, Bloomberg reports. All total, Glaxo has paid out close to $1 billion to resolve Paxil lawsuits since the drug came on the market in1992. The company's provision for all legal matters and other non-tax disputes as of the end of 2008 was listed as $3.09 billion in its annual report.
Read article by Evelyn Pringle on the OpEdNews website
March 1, 2010
Common painkillers 'increase risk of hearing loss'
Regular use of common painkillers like aspirin and paracetamol can significantly increase the risk of hearing loss, according to a new study.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
Comment: In the case of Aspirin, not only can it increase the risk of hearing loss but it can also raise the risk of deadly pancreatic cancer. These risks are of particular significance given that millions of people are taking Aspirin on a daily basis in the false belief that it will ward off heart attacks and strokes. Beliefs about the claimed cardiovascular benefits of aspirin are reported to have been spurred by a typo in an influential paper published in the British Medical Journal in 2002. A correction to the typo was apparently made, but not before the media erroneously began reporting on it as being effective in preventing heart attacks and strokes.
February 27, 2010
The other drug war - the politics of big business
Big Pharma spends millions every year buying influence in Canberra. Adele Ferguson and Eric Johnston investigate the ruthless tactics, the money and the spindoctors behind the scenes.
Read article in the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
February 26, 2010
Glaxo Loses Bid To Preempt Paxil Lawsuit
A lawsuit against GlaxoSmithKline over the suicide of 23-year-old Tricia Mason, who killed herself two days after taking its Paxil antidepressant, can proceed. The 7th Circuit appeals court ruled Glaxo didn’t meet its burden of showing with “clear evidence” the FDA would have rejected a labeling change to warn about enhanced suicide risk in young adults, The National Law Journal writes.
Read article at pharmalot.com
February 26, 2010
County files lawsuit against drug giant over diabetes medication
Claiming that a major drugmaker made billions of dollars on a diabetes medication that caused heart attacks and strokes, Santa Clara County on Friday filed a lawsuit charging a decade of false advertising and seeking compensation on behalf of patients and providers in California. Although patients have filed many personal-injury lawsuits against Pennsylvania-based GlaxoSmithKline over its drug Avandia, this is the first governmental lawsuit claiming the drugmaker falsely advertised Avandia's benefits and concealed its risks, according to Tamara Lange, Santa Clara County's lead deputy county counsel. The county alleges that GlaxoSmithKline earned billions of dollars on Avandia and cited an estimate that the drug caused 60,000 to 200,000 heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular deaths nationwide from 1999 to 2006.
Read article in the San Jose Mercury News (California/USA)
February 25, 2010
Ties To Glaxo Led To Favorable Avandia Studies
An analysis of authors who published reports on GlaxoSmithKline’s Avandia diabetes pill shows that those with ties to industry were more likely to conclude the drug didn’t increase the risk of myocardial infarction compared with authors with no industry ties, according to a study presented at the American College of Preventive Medicine annual meeting, TheHeart.org reports.
Read article at pharmalot.com
February 25, 2010
These Drugs Generated Most Adverse Event Reports
In the third quarter of 2009, the number of serious, disabling and fatal adverse drug events reported to the FDA numbered 29,065, compared to 26,809 in the same quarter a year earlier, an 8.4 percent rise, according to the Institute for Safe Medicine Practices. For the first three quarters of 2009 combined, the total number of reports was 8.1 percent higher than in the same period of 2008. Highlights of ISMP’s QuarterWatch report include: More than 1,000 reports of patient deaths were received for GlaxoSmithKline’s Avandia in the first three quarters of 2009, more than any other drug the non-profit monitors.
Read article at pharmalot.com
Comment: By means of a comparison, the most recent information collected by the U.S. National Poison Data System shows that there was not even one death caused by a dietary supplement in 2008.
February 24, 2010
Most Physician Training Aided By Pharma Support
More than half of program directors at internal medicine residency programs accepted various forms of pharma support - food for conferences, educational materials, office supplies, drug samples, and unrestricted educational funds, as well as direct contact with residents (off-site and on-site) - according to a survey in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Of 236 program directors, 56 percent reported accepting support from drugmakers, yet 72 percent said the support is undesirable.
Read article at pharmalot.com
February 23, 2010
Dosed up on donations and addicted to drug company money
Patient support groups and doctors are receiving millions of dollars a year from pharmaceutical companies under a grant system that is raising questions about their independence. A Daily Telegraph investigation found one of the nation's largest drug firms, Pfizer Australia, gave more than $1.7 million to 18 health organisations in 2008 and 2009. The drug company Glaxco-Smith- Kline last year spent $1.3 million sponsoring 14 consumer health groups such as the Asthma Foundation, the Cancer Council, Diabetes Australia and MS Australia. And drug companies are also spending more than a $1 million a week wining and dining doctors.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (Australia)
February 23, 2010
Concerns raised over drug firm funding of consumer health groups
Consumer health groups are receiving millions of dollars a year from pharmaceutical companies under a grant system that is raising questions about their independence.
Read article on the AdelaideNow website (Australia)
February 23, 2010
FDA warns of heart risk with HIV drug combination
FDA says HIV drugs from Roche and Abbott can be dangerous when used together
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning Tuesday about potential heart risks when combining two HIV drugs. The agency said preliminary data suggest Roche's Invirase and Abbott Laboratories' Norvir can affect the electrical activity of the heart when used together. Changes to the heart's electrical activity can delay the signals that trigger heart beats. In some cases the problem can cause irregular heart rhythms, leading to lightheadedness, fainting, and even death.
Read Associated Press news report at yahoo.com
Comment: Invirase and Norvir are antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. This class of highly toxic chemicals is promoted by the drug industry to patients with HIV-infections as "life saving." In this effort, the drug industry is using an army of lobbyists, including celebrities and even politicians, some of whom may not be aware of the scientific facts: none of these drugs has ever been shown to cure either HIV or AIDS and they are not allowed to be sold as a cure. Moreover, these toxic drugs are known to attack the immune system of patients and eventually destroy it. To learn the facts about ARV drugs, click here.
February 23, 2010
A Forbes Guest Blogger And His Pharma Ties
Here’s an embarassing moment for Forbes. Over the past week, a physician contributed a few items to the magazine’s science blog, defending various drugs that have recently been criticized or scrutinized over safety issues. Among them were GlaxoSmithKline’s Avandia diabetes pill; asthma meds, including Glaxo’s Advair and AstraZeneca’s Symbicort; and statins, such as AstraZeneca’s Crestor. However, the site never noted that the physician, Matthew Mintz, who is listed as an associate professor of medicine in the Department of Medicine at the George Washington University Medical Center in Wash., DC, had other credentials - consulting fees or advisory board participation for Glaxo and AstraZeneca, among others (look here). In the first second quarter of 2009, Glaxo paid him $11,050 (see here).
Read article at pharmalot.com
February 23, 2010
Philadelphia Jury Awards $9.45 Million in Damages Over Prempro Drug
Award marks latest in string of jury verdicts in favor of plaintiffs in Philadelphia hormone replacement therapy cases
Another Philadelphia jury has decided that drugmaker Wyeth should be punished with punitive damages for the warnings provided to a plaintiff and her doctor over the risk of breast cancer from Wyeth's hormonal drug Prempro. The jury awarded $6 million in punitive damages and $3.45 million in compensatory damages Monday in Singleton v. Wyeth.
Read article at law.com
February 22, 2010
Mass. doctor pleads guilty to research fraud
BOSTON -- A doctor accused of faking research for a dozen years in published studies that suggested after-surgery benefits from painkillers including Vioxx and Celebrex pleaded guilty Monday to one count of federal health care fraud. An attorney for Dr. Scott Reuben said the anesthesiologist will have to repay $361,932 in research grants and forfeit assets worth at least $50,000 as penalty for his conduct following a plea hearing in U.S. District Court. Prosecutors alleged the former chief of acute pain at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield sought and received research grants from pharmaceutical companies but never performed the studies. They said he fabricated patient data and submitted information to anesthesiology journals that unwittingly published it.
Read article in the Washington Post (USA)
February 20, 2010
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. "Americans have a right to know there are serious health risks associated with Avandia and GlaxoSmithKline had a responsibility to tell them," said U.S. Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat and committee chairman.
Read article at cnn.com
February 17, 2010
Kids on ADHD drugs 'poor at school'
Children with ADHD who use prescription drugs to manage their condition are 10 times more likely to perform poorly at school than ADHD kids who avoid medication, a new report reveals. The report also finds stimulant drugs such as Ritalin and dexamphetamine make no significant difference to the level of depression, self-perception and social functioning of a 14-year-old with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Those consistently using medication had significantly higher blood pressure at age 14 than children who had never taken drugs, a side-effect that could increase the risk of heart attack and stroke even into adulthood.
Read article in The Australian (Australia)
February 17, 2010
Cholesterol-lowering drugs increase risk of diabetes, study finds
Using drugs to lower cholesterol increases the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, research in Scotland suggests. An analysis of 13 studies involving the drugs, known as statins, found that they increased the chances of someone developing diabetes by 9 per cent.
Read article in The Scotsman (Scotland/UK)
February 17, 2010
Parkinson's class action approved
Lawsuit claims drugs turned patients into gambling addicts
An Ontario judge has approved a class-action lawsuit by Parkinson's patients who say a commonly used drug turned them into "relentless" gambling addicts, causing some to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Read article in the National Post (Canada)
Comment: The lawsuit deals with Permax, a drug developed by Eli Lilly, which was taken off the market in 2007 because of other, heart-related side effects. A growing number of studies have linked the drug to excessive gambling, sex addiction and other compulsive behaviour.
February 4, 2010
Ghostbusters: Authors of a new study propose a strict ban on medical ghostwriting
A scientist who takes credit as an author on an article secretly written by a pharmaceutical company should face punishment like any other plagiarist
When students pawn someone else's work off as their own, they get expelled. But when some professors do the same thing, they get a "pat on the back," and maybe even a few extra bucks. Scientists credited for research articles that were secretly penned by ghostwriters from pharmaceutical companies often are not reprimanded for their misrepresentations; rather, their ranks and career trajectories often improve. Although this practice of undisclosed authors (with undisclosed commercial interests) writing articles under the pretense of unbiased scientific inquiry raises serious concerns about academic integrity, few institutions have policies to discourage it. The authors of a new study published in PLoS One hope to make medical ghostwriting a faux pas on par with plagiarism and data falsification.
Read article at scientificamerican.com
February 3, 2010
AstraZeneca Facing 26,000 Lawsuits Over Seroquel
AstraZeneca Plc is facing as many as 26,000 lawsuits over its antipsychotic drug Seroquel as the drugmaker prepares for its first jury trial over claims the medicine causes diabetes, according to court filings.
Read article at bloomberg.com
February 1, 2010
H1N1 flu shot sickness probed
The provincial health ministry is investigating 17 cases in which people fell seriously ill after the receipt of the H1N1 flu vaccine. Andrew Morrison, spokeman for the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, said the cases include four vaccine recipients who came down with Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) — a rare neurological condition characterized by sudden weakness or parlysis. Another 13 people came down with anaphylaxis, a serious allergic reaction which can include symptoms of anaphylactic shock, rapid heartbeat, itchiness in the skin and difficulty breathing.
Read article in the Toronto Sun (Canada)
January 30, 2010
'Corrupt' drug firm practices exposed
A Flinders University study has exposed "corrupt" drug company marketing practices including covering up adverse side effects and pushing patients on to new, more expensive drugs even when they are less effective. Psychiatrist Peter Parry and American colleague Glen Spielmans studied 400 internal emails and research documents unearthed mainly through court cases. "Drug marketing is a very sophisticated system which corrupts every part of the scientific and medical network," Dr Parry said.
Read article at news.com.au (Adelaide/Australia)
January 29, 2010
Judge refuses to dismiss Fosamax case, sets trial
A Manhattan federal judge refused on Friday to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that Merck & Co Inc's osteoporosis drug Fosamax caused jaw damage to an Indiana woman during the nearly eight years she took the pill. U.S. District Judge John Keenan described the case involving plaintiff Louise Maley, 69, as one of the "bellwether" trials in nationwide litigation over Fosamax, which has spawned close to 900 lawsuits.
Read news report at reuters.com
January 28, 2010
Franklin Co. judge awards $5.3 million in penalties against AstraZeneca
Franklin Circuit Judge Roger Crittenden has awarded $5.3 million in civil penalties against the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca for violating Kentucky's Consumer Protection Act. In October, a jury handed down a $14.7 million verdict against AstraZeneca for defrauding the Medicaid program and Kentucky consumers by inflating prices of its prescription drugs. Crittenden found 5,391 violations of the Kentucky Consumer Protection Act and awarded $1,000 per violation for a total civil penalty of $5,391,000.
Read article at kentucky.com (USA)
January 28, 2010
The Rise Of Marketing-Based Medicine
You’ve heard of evidence-based medicine. Well, a new paper summarizes a panoply of practices employed over the past two decades or so - ghostwriting, suppressing or spinning data, disease mongering and managing side effect perceptions among docs - that the authors call marketing-based medicine. And they rely on internal documents from litigation - such as the much-publicized lawsuits over antipsychotics and antidepressants - to illustrate their point. “While much excitement has been generated surrounding evidence-based medicine, internal documents from the pharmaceutical industry suggest that the publicly available evidence base may not accurately represent the underlying data regarding its products,” they write in Bioethical Inquiry (see here). “We propose that while evidence-based medicine is a noble ideal, marketing-based medicine is the current reality…
Read article at pharmalot.com
January 27, 2010
Drug firms 'drove swine flu pandemic warning to recoup £billions spent on research'
Drug companies manipulated the World Health Organisation into downgrading its definition of a pandemic so they could cash in on a swine flu outbreak, it is claimed. An inquiry heard yesterday that the WHO allegedly softened its criteria for declaring a H1N1 flu pandemic last spring - just weeks before announcing there was a worldwide outbreak. Critics said the decision was driven by pharmaceutical companies desperate to recoup the billions of pounds they had invested in researching and developing pandemic vaccines after the bird flu scares in 2006 and 2007.
Read article in the Daily Mail (UK)
January 27, 2010
Miscarriages after flu vaccine
At least seven pregnant women have suffered a miscarriage or fetal deaths after being given the H1N1 vaccine in Hong Kong. Six had their cases reported to the Center for Health Protection of Hong Kong's Department of Health including four who had been pregnant for no longer than six months, the Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Po newspaper reported yesterday. The seventh, a 39-year-old woman, suffered a miscarriage last Thursday at Princess Margaret Hospital after taking the vaccine last month.
Read article in the Shanghai Daily (China)
January 27, 2010
Swine Flu Didn't Fly
For makers of the swine flu vaccine, 2009 was a year to remember. By June, CSL Limited's profits rose 63 percent above 2008 levels, while in the third quarter of 2009 - just about the time H1N1 contracts picked up steam - GlaxoSmithKine enjoyed a 30 percent jump in earnings to $2.19 billion. Roche, the maker of Tamiflu, which prevents H1N1, saw second quarter profits leap to 12 times what they were in that quarter of 2008. But in 2010, drug companies may get their comeuppance. On Tuesday, the Council of Europe launched an investigation into whether the World Health Organization (WHO) "faked" the swine flu pandemic to boost profits for vaccine manufacturers. The inquiry, held in Strasbourg, France, vindicates a worldwide movement of insiders, experts and elected officials who accuse the United Nations organization of misleading the world into buying millions of unnecessary vaccines.
Read article at truthout.org
January 27, 2010
Antidepressants Tied To Lactation Problems
Women who take several widely used antidepressants may experience delayed lactation after giving birth and may need additional support to achieve breastfeeding goals, according to a study to be published in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. The drugs in question are SSRIs, such as Glaxo’s Paxil, Pfizer’s Zoloft and Eli Lilly’s Prozac.
Read article at pharmalot.com
January 26, 2010
AstraZeneca 'suppressed' drug test data
The marketing team sued over a drug's alleged side effects tried to suppress key data, an ex-employee has claimed. Seroquel's former UK medical adviser told the BBC he was pressured to approve promotional material which said weight gain was not an issue.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
January 25, 2010
Pfizer Compensates Trovan Victims With N26 Million Each
Pfizer has agreed to pay N26 million to each family of the victims of its Trovan vaccine trials in Kano in 2006, provided there is proof of death or permanent incapacitation. About 200 people took part in the trials which resulted in the death of some patients and the permanent incapacitation of others. The Meningitis Trust Fund (MTF), a body set up to pay the compensation on behalf of Pfizer, said it has received over 600 applications from those who claimed they participated in the tests and want to be compensated.
Read article at allafrica.com
January 23, 2010
MP damns swine flu drugs lobby
A Welsh MP has raised concerns that the swine flu pandemic was exaggerated under pressure from the pharmaceutical industry. Newport West MP Paul Flynn believes the H1N1 pandemic is the latest is a long line of health scares – including Sars and new variant CJD – to be blown out of proportion. He has welcomed a hearing next week to determine whether the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) pandemic flu declaration in June was based on “objective epidemiological evidence or on pressure from the pharmaceutical lobby”. The left-wing Labour MP, who has tabled two motions in the House of Commons in a bid to expose “the pandemic that never was”, said: “We have had four major scares throughout the world of potential mass-killer pandemics but they have been exaggerated.
Read article at walesonline.co.uk (Wales/UK)
January 22, 2010
Tax and Spend: U.N.'s Rx for New World Medical Order
A member of a World Health Organization (WHO) panel of experts that is pondering new global taxes on e-mails, alcohol, tobacco, airline travel and consumer bank transactions, has charged that she was given only selective information at group meetings, that deliberations were rushed and that group was "manipulated" by the international pharmaceuticals industry.
Read article at foxnews.com
January 18, 2010
PACE to open hearings on 'falsified' swine flu pandemic
PACE is to open hearings on Monday on pharmaceutical companies' possible influence on the global swine flu campaign and on the World Health Organization, a Russian daily reported. The 47-nation Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is conducting an inquiry into an alleged conspiracy between the WHO, the pharmaceutical industry and scientists which could "expose millions of healthy people to the risk of side-effects of insufficiently tested vaccines," caused damage to public budgets and to health agencies' credibility, according to a PACE resolution. The motion was introduced by Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, head of the health committee, former German lawmaker and a specialist in lung disease, who called the current pandemic "one of the greatest medical scandals of the century." WHO declared the pandemic in June 2009 on the advice of a group of experts many of whom are believed to have financial ties with pharmaceutical giants like GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, Novartis, and benefited from the production of drugs and H1N1 vaccines.
Read article on the RIA Novosti website (Russia)
Comment: Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, has apparently said that Russia should withdraw from the WHO if the corruption suspicions are proven.
January 16, 2010
Swine flu was a textbook case of a scare
So swine flu – eventually found to be only a tenth as virulent as ordinary flu – passes into history as yet another massive scare. Hyped out of all proportion by drug companies and the World Health Organisation, this fooled our endlessly gullible politicians into spending £1 billion on vaccines which turned out not to be needed. Thus, quite predictably, did the swine flu panic follow the classic pattern of so many other scares before it, as Dr North and I analysed in our book on the phenomenon, Scared To Death. Tracing the history of many examples, we showed how the most damaging point in any scare, from BSE and salmonella in eggs to the Millennium Bug, comes when governments fall for the hype, needlessly costing us all billions of pounds.
Read article by Christopher Booker in the Sunday Telegraph (UK)
January 15, 2010
U.N.'s World Health Organization Eyeing Global Tax on Banking, Internet Activity
The World Health Organization (WHO) is considering a plan to ask governments to impose a global consumer tax on such things as Internet activity or everyday financial transactions like paying bills online. Such a scheme could raise "tens of billions of dollars" on behalf of the United Nations' public health arm from a broad base of consumers, which would then be used to transfer drug-making research, development and manufacturing capabilities, among other things, to the developing world. The multibillion-dollar "indirect consumer tax" is only one of a "suite of proposals" for financing the rapid transformation of the global medical industry that will go before WHO's 34-member supervisory Executive Board at its biannual meeting in Geneva.
Read article at foxnews.com (USA)
Comment: Ordinary people all over the world already bear the brunt of the pharmaceutical business with disease, paying for it not only through their pockets but also with their lives. Given therefore that the pharmaceutical industry’s total global sales were worth 773 billion dollars in 2008, any notion that drug-making needs to be funded by tens of billions of dollars of global consumer taxes is clearly absurd. This WHO plan should be vigorously opposed, as, far from transforming the global medical industry, it would simply result in still more money being put into the hands of the drug cartel.
January 15, 2010
Doc Faces Fraud In Pfizer Research Case
Federal prosecutors filed a health care fraud charge against Scott Reuben, who is accused of faking research for a dozen years in published studies suggesting Vioxx and Celebrex offered benefits after surgery. Court documents indicate Reuben, an anesthesiologist, agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a recommendation of a more lenient jail sentence of up to 10 years, a $250,000 fine and forfeiture of assets worth at least $50,000 received for the research, the Associated Press reports. Prosecutors allege the former chief of acute pain at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Ma., sought and received research grants from drugmakers but never performed the studies. He fabricated patient data and submitted information to anesthesiology journals that unwittingly published it, the AP writes, citing court documents. Some of his research was not approved by an internal hospital review board and a probe later found 21 papers published in anesthesiology journals between 1996 and 2008 in which Reuben made up some or all data.
Read article at pharmalot.com
January 14, 2010
Suits allege harm from Pfizer quit-smoking drug
Three personal injury lawsuits were filed against Pfizer Inc on Thursday, claiming its smoking-cessation drug Chantix caused attempted suicides or death. The suits, all filed in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan by the same plaintiffs' law firm, claim Pfizer failed to notify doctors and patients about dangers the company allegedly knew about the pill -- including depression and suicidal thoughts--at the time the plaintiffs took the medicine.
Read news report at reuters.com
January 14, 2010
Thalidomide apology reaction mixed
Almost 50 years after the drug thalidomide was withdrawn in the UK the Government has apologised over the scandal - but some victims said it was too little, too late. The formal apology by Health Minister Mike O'Brien was greeted with a mixed reaction by campaigners who welcomed the move but pointed out the statement fell short of saying "sorry". Pregnant women were prescribed thalidomide between 1958 and 1961 as a treatment for morning sickness or insomnia, but it was withdrawn from sale after babies were born with limb deformities and other disabilities.
Read UK Press Association news report at google.com
January 13, 2010
Drug firm made to pay for pollution
SHANGHAI: Authorities have made a pharmaceutical company in Zhejiang province pay a compensation of 2.2 million yuan ($322,200) after it dumped more than 1,000 barrels of unprocessed, noxious waste in two counties in neighboring Anhui province last December. Environmental protection authorities held the company, Zhejiang Apeloa Tospo Pharmaceutics, responsible for the pollution in Lixin and Woyang counties, along with its waste processing contractor Xing Binghua, who is now wanted by the police. The chemical waste dumped in the two counties contains dichloromethane methanol and methane, which are categorized as hazardous waste chemicals under national regulations. The chemicals can cause eye diseases, blood poisoning and damage to the central nervous system, experts said.
Read article at chinadaily.com.cn (China)
January 13, 2010
Court Revives HRT Lawsuit Against Pfizer
Pennsylvania’s Superior Court reinstituted a lawsuit by finding that a woman was entitled to an exception to the two-year statute of limitations, because she couldn’t have reasonably known of an alleged link between her breast cancer and hormone-replacement therapy drugs before the publication of the Women’s Health Initiative Study in July 2002, The Legal Intelligencer reports. Despite a $1.5 million verdict in favor of Merle Simon, her lawsuit was dismissed because of the judgment. But the Superior Court said the trial judge shouldn’t have tossed her suit because it was filed within two years of the publication of the WHI study, which found HRT drugs increase the risk of breast cancer. Simon was diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2002.
Read article at pharmalot.com
January 12, 2010
"Extraordinary" increases in drug prices: report
Prices for hundreds of brand-name drugs have soared since the beginning of the decade, especially those that treat depression, infections and heart disease, according to a U.S. government report on Monday. The nonpartisan General Accountability Office said it found "extraordinary price increases" for 321 brand-name drugs, with prices jumping by 100 percent to 499 percent - and in a few cases by more than 1,000 percent.
Read news report at reuters.com
Comment: The pharmaceutical industry is an investment industry driven by the profits of its shareholders. Improving human health is not its driving force. Artificially created and strategically developed over an entire century by the same investment groups that control the global petrochemical and chemical industries, its 12-month global sales amounted to 773 billion dollars (over three-quarters of a trillion) during 2008. Overall, the industry’s annual sales have risen by a staggering 380 billion dollars since 2001. Clearly, these latest price rises are designed to ensure that this skyrocketing increase in the industry’s annual income continues.
January 11, 2010
Swine flu: "They Organized the Panic". Inquiry into the Role of Big Pharma and WHO by Council of Europe
Bruno Odent interviews Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg
The German President of the Health Committee of the Council of Europe, Wolfgang Wodarg, is issuing accusations against the pharmaceutical lobbies and the governments. He has initiated the start of an investigation by that body concerning the role played by the pharmaceutical industry in the campaign of panic about the virus. Ex-member of the SPD, Wolfgang Wodarg is a doctor and epidemiologist. His request for a commission of inquiry into the role of pharmaceutical companies in the management of swine flu outbreak by WHO and the nation states was granted unanimously by the members of the Health Committee of the Council of Europe.
Read Bruno Odent's interview with Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg on the website of the Centre for Research on Globalization
January 7, 2010
WHO Advisor Secretly Pads Pockets with Big Pharma Money
A Finnish member of the World Health Organization board, an advisor on vaccines, has received 6 million Euros for his research center from the vaccine manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline. Although WHO promises transparency, this conflict of interest is not available for the public to see at WHO’s homepage. Professor Juhani Eskola is the director of the Finnish research vaccine program and a new member of the WHO group ‘Strategic Advisory Group of Experts’ (SAGE). SAGE recommends which vaccines -- and how many -- member countries should purchase for the pandemic.
Read article at foodconsumer.org
January 5, 2010
Zambians fume over failed AIDS trial
A Zambian traditional leader has fumed over reports that a number of his female subjects who underwent a microbicide gel clinical trials have contracted HIV, the virus that cause AIDS. Close to a quarter of volunteers that took part in a microbicide gel clinical trials in Southern Zambia contracted HIV, 12 months after the commencement of the trial. Zambian authorities have remained mute over the development while officials from the Microbicide Development Programme in Zambia and United Kingdom have pains to explain what went wrong during the clinical trials. Chief Mwanachingwala who presides over the affected site in Mazabuka of southern Zambia has expressed regret at the leaked results of the trials. The traditional leader has claimed that the Microbicide Development Programme enrolled illiterate and uneducated women who did not understand the nature of the clinical trials and its consequences.
Read article at africanews.com
January 4, 2010
EU to probe pharma over “false pandemic”
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is to hold an emergency debate and inquiry this month into the “influence” exerted by drugmakers on the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) global H1N1 flu campaign. The text of the resolution approved by the Assembly calling for the debate and inquiry states that: “in order to promote their patented drugs and vaccines against flu, pharmaceutical companies influenced scientists and official agencies responsible for public health standards to alarm governments worldwide and make them squander tight health resources for inefficient vaccine strategies, and needlessly expose millions of healthy people to the risk of an unknown amount of side-effects of insufficiently tested vaccines.” The WHO’s “false pandemic” flu campaign is “one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century,” according to Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, chairman the PACE Health Committee, who introduced the parliamentary motion.
Read article at pharmatimes.com
January 2, 2010
Harvard Teaching Hospitals Cap Outside Pay
The owner of two research hospitals affiliated with the Harvard Medical School has imposed restrictions on outside pay for two dozen senior officials who also sit on the boards of pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies. The limits come in the wake of growing criticism of the ties between industry and academia.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)
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