Fox Guards the Henhouse with BigPharma Testing Itself

We’d love to hear what others think about BigPharma sponsoring studies about their own pharmaceuticals and thinking that this is going to generate quality information. The drug companies get slapped on the wrists when they get caught with their ethics in the grinder, but then it is forgotten by the general public. Here’s a story of interest from the “Hooked: Ethics, Medicine and Pharma” blog, which we’ll soon be featuring here in the middle column of PharmaWhistleblower website. Stay tuned in, and please share your thoughts.


Check it here.

They Thought They'd Get Away With It...But They Didn't

Biovail Pharmaceuticals, LLC, will pay over $22 million in a criminel fine after pleading guilty to conspiracy and kickback charges. Biovaile, a New Jersey-based pharmaceutical company and its employees were charged with operating a program in which Biovaile paid or caused to be paid up to $1,000 to thousands of physicians and others in order to induce them to prescribe or recommend the drug Cardizem, L.A.

BioVail Pharmaceuticals will also pay more than $2.4 million to the United States to resolve allegations that this conduct caused false claims to be submitted to the United States.

Read the official account..

Pharmaceutical companies need to be accountable. Did they know that what they were doing was illegal? How could they not? Unethical? C'mon...they paid real money to people as an incentive to get them to prescribe their drug. They did this with disregard to the patients, who might benefit more, or have a smaller ding in their pocketbook, with another drug. And physicians who took the money and prescribed the drug? SHAME ON YOU! Anyone who was prescribed this drug should ask their doctor outright if he or she was part of this "program", for their own peace of mind.

A Psychiatrist Takes On A Drug Company. Good Read!

The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg


Doug Bremner

This is the story of a psychiatrist who takes on a multibillion dollar drug company, gets chewed up and spit out, but survives. Even conquers.

A psychiatrist doing research on a drug for the treatment of acne speaks out about the dangers of the drug which can cause depression and suicide. The drug company that makes the drug, from which they get a billion dollars a year in profit, hires doctors to spy on him and discredit him, sues his university, attacks his research and accuses him of fraud, and harrasses him in other ways. His colleagues desert him, his wife leaves him and his family falls apart. He goes on a journey to look for his mother and finds her in an unexpected way. This gives him the strength to carry on. His family is restored and the drug company finally removes the drug from the market.

Product recall .... prenatal vitamins

Product Recall!

Who would think that prescription prenatal vitamins and iron supplements could pose a risk! Ethex Corporation is removing over 60 generic drugs from the shelves for oversized tablets, wrong dosages, and other defects that can pose a risk to mom and baby. For more info, check out the latest press release at

http://www.fda.gov/oc/po/firmrecalls/ethex02_09.htm

Xigris safety review..... Bleeding and sepsis

Do you or someone you know have severe sepsis? Have you been treated with Xigris. There have been serious side effects and this medication is undergoing an ongoing safety review. Serious bleeding in 35%% of patients shows the risk of this medication.
http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/early_comm/drotrecogin_alfa.html

Danger of Numbing Ingredients

If you are getting a mammogram, laser hair removal or are suffering from chronic pain and use topical anesthetics, think again. These have been used to block pain in the skin for medical tests or for specific conditions have caused two women to die.
These anesthetics often pass into the blood stream. More info from the FDA is available at
http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/podcast/topical_anesthetics_full.htm

Are you taking singulair (montelukast)for asthma or allergies? If you or someone you know uses singulair, be aware that many patients who take this drug suffer from changes in mood and behavior, including suicidal thoughts.

Check this out
http://www.fda.gov/medwatch/safety/2008/safety08.htm#Singulair
Or talk with your healthcare professional.

test 7jan

testing on jan 7

Mike Adams on why Merck execs should be arrested

Do not allow Merck to conduct further business in this country

I believe that law enforcement authorities in America have both the right and the responsibility to arrest top Merck executives, seize Merck's inventory, and deny Merck the right to conduct any further business in this nation by cancelling its corporate charter. I believe Merck is engaged in serious crimes against the People and that its business practices are clearly being conducted in violation of federal law (not to mention in violation of basic business ethics and human compassion). If this was any other corporation we were talking about here -- and not Merck -- this company would be subjected to a massive campaign of media scrutiny and Congressional scrutiny. But not Merck. It's too powerful, too influential.

Merck should be renamed "The Teflon Company" because even though it's pushing dangerous chemicals, nothing seems to stick.

Let me break it down for you and tell you what's really happening here. It's the same old story, after all: Rich, powerful white-collar criminals get away with murder, while the poor, the disadvantaged and the sick get shafted.

I pray for the day that Merck is put out of business, shut down by law enforcement authorities who finally decide to apply existing federal law and prosecute this dangerous, destructive corporation for its organized-crime-like operations. Americans would be far safer if Merck were shut down. In fact, the threat to Americans' health from Merck far outweighs any threat to national security by terrorists. Think about it: The current war in Iraq has killed 4,000 Americans. Just one drug from Merck has killed over 50,000 (and that's a conservative estimate). That's more than ten times the number of Americans killed in our current war!

Is Merck a terrorist organization? No, it's a dishonest, corrupt corporation that pretends to be engaged in good deeds and genuine science. But if you peek behind the curtain, you find nothing but fraud, deception, and the complete disregard for human life. Merck isn't a terrorist organization, but it's killed far more Americans than any terrorist organization could. Even a dirty bomb set off at the Superbowl (which was one of the FBI's recent terrorist concerns) wouldn't kill as many Americans as Merck's drugs have in the last five years. That's no exaggeration.

In my opinion, Merck is an evil, out-of-control corporation that's destroying lives and obliterating any remaining credibility of the pharmaceutical industry. One day, when the truth finally emerges about the totality of Merck's crimes against the People and the depth of its willful deception, the public will be stunned, frozen in a state of disbelief that they could have tolerated such heinous crimes right under their noses. They will think the same thoughts of Nazi supporters seeing Hitler's concentration camps for the first time... How could we have allowed this to happen right here, on our own soil? To our own children? To our own families?

It's time to apply federal laws to Merck and start making arrests. Too many lives have been lost already, and the extreme fraud being routinely exhibited by Merck should not go unpunished. It's time to finally protect Americans from Big Pharma.

Read it all here: http://www.naturalnews.com/z023052.html

GlaxoSmithKline intimidation of Bob Fiddaman

Bloggers discussing the intimidation of a patient, Bob Fiddaman, by GlaxoSmithKline

• Does GSK Love Bad Publicity? (Clin Psych Blog)
• Video sets GlaxoSmithKline Hounds to Intimidate British Blogger (AHRP Blog)
• This U.S.A. blog supports Bob Fiddaman (Soulful Sepulcher)
• Glaxo Smith Kline (Bipolar Blast)
• It's Groundhog Day for bullying by GlaxoSmithKline over Seroxat (Scientific Misconduct Blog)
• GSK Lawyers target Seroxat campaigner Bob Fiddaman (Seroxat Secrets)
• Tony Nunn
• Intimidation: a standard tactic? (Matt Holford)
• Glaxo Goes After British Blogger's Video (Furious Seasons)
• GSK Video - The Aftermath
• Pharmagossip
• BLOGSCAN - GSK Lawyers Have Paxil Video Taken Down
• Missisyphus’s Weblog: Bob fiddaman’s video about paxil
• An Angry Blogger And Free Speech (Ed Silverman of Pharmalot and the Star-Ledger of New Jersey)

Two Years Later the Truth Comes Out

1/18/2008
The million or so Americans who've been prescribed Zetia to lower their cholesterol have been duped by the pharmaceutical companies.

Merck and Schering-Plough funded an "independent study" and dragged the trial on for two years, testing 720 patients."This wraps it up," said Dr. Steven E. Nissen, chairman of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic. "That's all there is. There just isn't any evidence that adding ezetimibe to simvastatin produces any advantage."

Another group questioned why patients should be prescribed more expensive cholesterol-lowering drugs, such as Vytorin, versus cheaper, generic statins such as Zocor."We already know that millions of people who take these brand drugs probably don't need to; they could be taking a less expensive generic instead.

This study lends support to that cost-saving strategy for the health system and for consumers," said Steven Findlay, managing editor of Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs, a public information and education project of Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports."If there is no apparent clinical benefit, why take a drug that cost three or four times more?" Findlay said in a statement. "Most people do not need that magnitude of cholesterol reduction anyway."

Sales of Zetia and Vytorin totaled $3.7 billion in the nine months ending Sept. 30, up 33 percent from a year ago. Analysts estimate that about 70 percent of Schering-Plough's earnings depend on the drugs, the Times noted.

Read More HERE

Merck and Schering-Plough concealed data in clinical trials

Congressmen John Dingell (D-MI) and Bart Stupak (D-MI) say that Merck and Schering-Plough concealed or manipulated clinical trial data for Vytorin. Trial results showed that Vytorin was no more effective than the cheap, generic versions.“Today’s announcement that the ENHANCE study failed to find any positive benefit from the addition of Zetia to a common, inexpensive, generic therapy raises concerns that attempts were made to mask the minimal value of this new drug. Additionally, Merck and Schering-Plough’s delay in releasing study results, as well as their attempt to manipulate the data is, quite frankly, suspicious,” said Dingell.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee wants more information about the so-called independent panel formed to review the Vytorin trial data, the study’s Data Safety Monitoring Board, stock sales by Schering-Plough execs and the amount of money spent on Vytorin by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Release of the Vytorin data was delayed almost two years and the primary endpoint was briefly changed without the consent of the lead investigator. “In light of today’s results, which were released nearly two years after the ENHANCE trial ended, it is easy to conclude that Merck and Schering-Plough intentionally sought to delay the release of this data,” said Stupak. “It’s currently unclear whether these companies knew that adding a new expensive drug accomplished nothing more than an established, cheaper, generic. But it is clear that our investigation is far from over."

The investigation is also focusing on the heavy advertising for Vytorin.

Good Satire Video on YouTube

Vytorin Scientific Fraud and Parody Cholesterol Ad on YouTube, by "The Health Ranger"

Click HERE to see the video!