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Drug Company Merck Drew Up Doctor "Hit List"
Philip K Dickhead sends in a piece from the Australian media, a couple of weeks old, that hasn't seen much discussion here. In a class-action lawsuit in Australia against Merck for its Vioxx anti-arthritis drug, information has come out that the company developed a "hit list" of doctors who had expressed anything but enthusiasm for the drug. Vioxx was withdrawn from the market in 2004 because it causes heart attacks and strokes. Merck settled a class action in the US for $4.85 billion but did not admit guilt. "An international drug company made a hit list of doctors who had to be 'neutralized' or discredited because they criticized the anti-arthritis drug the pharmaceutical giant produced. Staff at US company Merck & Co. emailed each other about the list of doctors — mainly researchers and academics — who had been negative about the drug Vioxx or Merck and a recommended course of action. The email, which came out in the Federal Court in Melbourne yesterday as part of a class action against the drug company, included the words 'neutralize,' 'neutralized,' or 'discredit' against some of the doctors' names. It is also alleged the company used intimidation tactics against critical researchers, including dropping hints it would stop funding to institutions and claims it interfered with academic appointments. 'We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live,' a Merck employee wrote, according to an email excerpt read to the court by Julian Burnside QC, acting for the plaintiff."
We've all seen the classic beer commercial. Some guy is bored and alone. Then he cracks open a beer and suddenly this amazing party materializes out of nowhere and bunch of adoring super-models surround the guy like he's the hottest guy on the planet.
Most of us recognize that this is a marketing fantasy. Sure, beer is often served at parties and there are often some attractive women at parties but the actual events depicted in such commercials are solidly in the realm of fantasy. More fundamentally, most of us recognize that the reason we are being shown the beer commercial is not because the beer company is devoted to improving our lives but instead because the CEO wants to increase profits so he can get his incentive bonus so he can buy his third mistress that second luxury vacation home she's been asking for. The CEO probably does see himself as a decent guy but, when you strip away the pretense, he's certainly not doing what he does out of pure altruism.
We've also all seen the classical antidepressant commercial. Some guy "hurts everywhere" and "everyone". Then he pops a couple cute little pills and "everywhere" and "everyone" magically stops hurting - whatever problems he may have had with his health or his career or his relationships or his dog are magically cured by those cute little pills.
Do most of us recognize that this is a marketing fantasy? Probably not. Sure, antidepressants are prescribed to people with depression and people do recover from depression. But the idea that a couple pills will solve every single problem you have in your life is solidly in the realm of fantasy. More fundamentally, the reason we are shown the antidepressant commercial is not because the pharmaceutical company is devoted to improving our lives but instead because the CEO wants to increase profits so he can get his incentive bonus so he can buy his third mistress that second luxury vacation home she's been asking for. The CEO probably does see himself as a decent guy but, when you strip away the pretense, he's certainly not doing what he does out of pure altruism.
So, getting back to the topic in this Slashdot article, people should look at such articles and wake up to the fact that pharmaceutical companies are not motivated by altruism - and that, furthermore, pharmaceutical will make whatever claims about their drugs that they think they can legally get away with. When a pharmaceutical company makes a "scientific" claim about one of their drugs, you can be sure that the claim has the bare minimum of actual scientific basis allowed by law.
We see this over and over again. We saw it in HP where leadership was so arrogant that it thought it should be able to do the things it did overstepping boundaries. Critics must be silenced. This isn't about competition in the sense of making better, safer, more effective things. This is about competition of life versus death quite literally. They see the world as an opponent that must be controlled, misdirected or otherwise "neutralized." In short, they are sociopathic and should be legally marked and deemed as such.
www.google.com/#q=corporate+personhood
www.reclaimdemocracy.org/personhood/
We believe that corporations are not persons and possess only the privileges we willfully grant them. Granting corporations the status of legal "persons" effectively rewrites the Constitution to serve corporate interests as though they were human interests. Ultimately, the doctrine of granting constitutional rights to corporations gives a thing illegitimate privilege and power that undermines our freedom and authority as citizens. While corporations are setting the agenda on issues in our Congress and courts, We the People are not; for we can never speak as loudly with our own voices as corporations can with the unlimited amplification of money.
We've all seen the classic beer commercial. Some guy is bored and alone. Then he cracks open a beer and suddenly this amazing party materializes out of nowhere and bunch of adoring super-models surround the guy like he's the hottest guy on the planet.
Spookily enough, this is how they sold the doctors on the meds to begin with.
I worked as IT guy at a medical office for a number of years, and noticed that I'd never seen an ugly pharmaceutical rep. The reps sent to the doc's office were all pretty enough to drive most guys googoo, and I noticed even Doc was hanging on her every word. Later, I asked the office manager if that was common and actually WORKED. "Every time I'VE seen," she replied...
Since then, I've always wondered how many drugs were prescribed solely because of hooters.
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
Yep. Much of the doctor to doctor advertising is on the basis of "Dr. So and So at the University thinks this is a great drug". No facts, just opinion, and typically money under the table. Or even money up front and center.
For years doctors seemed to be under the allusion that they were protected from advertising's nefarious psychological hooks because "we're smart". That nonsense is being completely and thoroughly debunked as these sorts of blantant maneuvering and lying on the behalf of Big Pharma become more apparent. More and more (although still a minority, unfortunately) of physicians don't let drug reps near them. And this sort of behavior is accelerating the trend.
It will take another half generation or so of new docs to come up through the ranks with a very jaundiced view of drug company advertising. But it will happen. And the Big Pharma knows it. Which is why they are so keen to push direct to consumer advertising.
Follow the money. Corporations always do.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
My mother was taking Vioxx regularly when the whole scandal broke. She immediately went to the pharmacist to get as much of the stuff as she could before it got taken off the market. The other drugs didn't really do it for her. Arthritis sucks, and as a dentist, it has a huge impact on your ability to do your job.
Yeah, it might kill you, but on the other hand, it's about quality of life.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
Does anyone else besides me see the common practice of coming to a settlement with no admission that the corporation did anything wrong is a really, really bad thing. I don't know if the fact that this is tacked on to every major settlement has to do with the fact that these corporations are massive concentrations of power and money that the legal systems aren't designed to deal with or if it's just greedy plaintiffs or a combination of both. If we could get companies to actually admit guilt in some of these cases, would it head off crap like this anyways?
Obviously we need more gay doctors.
"our profits are driving R&D for the next generation of drugs."
They DO say that. They routinely say that when criticized about their astronomical profit margins. Problem is, it's a lie. R&D is an expense. Since when do you pay your corporate expenses out of your profits? Profits are counted AFTER expenses. Essentially they're trying to get their expenses counted twice.
This space available.
We've also all seen the classical antidepressant commercial. Some guy "hurts everywhere" and "everyone". Then he pops a couple cute little pills and "everywhere" and "everyone" magically stops hurting - whatever problems he may have had with his health or his career or his relationships or his dog are magically cured by those cute little pills.
What? You guys really get ads like that in the States? I can't remember ever seeing an ad for prescription drugs - the very notion of advertising anti-depressants directly to consumers (particularly over the boob tube) is insane!
My girlfriends family doctor is one of those doctors. She pushes anything that is pro pharma and has TONS of free samples for crazy amount of different drugs. When my girlfriend mentioned to her that I was looking to find a family doctor who was pro cannabis (Trying to get a license for my herniated disk) she got all up on my girlfriend how cannabis is bad and all that... but shes more then willing to give out some free pills for "beta' testing. Always wondered how much shes paid by the pharma companies.
Another thing I don't understand is how anyone could take a pill that spends more then half of the tv commercial talking about how many side effects there are and that rare occasional deaths can occur. WTF?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Here is the conundrum:
Pharmaceutical and other medical research companies in the US semi-routinely engage in questionable behavior, obviously a bad thing that is enabled by the existence of the Byzantine private healthcare market of the United States. Simultaneously, the vast majority of global medical research, 60-70%, is done in the US and is significantly enabled by the fact that you can recoup costs because the healthcare market is more competitive (albeit perversely) due to the semi-private nature of the market. It is one of the reasons many new medical treatments and diagnostics are available in the US first.
So here is the problem: on one hand the US healthcare market is a byzantine mess where a lot of questionable practices can occur, but on the other hand this same mess also enables most of the world's medical innovation to occur. Much of the rest of the industrialized world is a free rider on the ugly mess that is US healthcare when it comes to innovation and R&D investment. It might be nice to adopt, say, European-style healthcare systems in theory, but can we afford it at the price of relative technological stagnation because all the profit motive has been removed from the development of that technology since the US is the last major market where a legitimate profit can be extracted?
Profit motive is a double-edged sword, and in healthcare is no exception. But I think far too many people, particularly people used to socialized medicine, abhor the ugly side of such things while failing to recognize that they also benefit mightily from it. Even Americans benefit from it in some significant ways despite the unacceptably high costs, such as having the highest cancer survival rates in the world, markedly higher than many western industrialized countries. There needs to be a way to get the benefits without throwing out the innovation baby with the bathwater, which strictly socializing US medicine would do by all empirical evidence. The stark differences in the level of investment in medical advancements by various countries is hard to ignore, and I generally consider such investment to be a good thing.
A friend of mine was a rep for a larger company. She was an ex college cheerleader and they picked her up straight out of college, and with bonuses, she was making close to 80k in her second year. This didn't include all the expenses her company paid for - car, housing, gas, expense accounts for taking clients to dinner. And according to her, she was not unique in her history as a cheerleader, or her pay grade.
I saw the analytical software she had to gauge her performance against others in her region. It was mind-boggling how much data she had, how many prescriptions had been written by which doctor, doctors who hadn't purchased her brands yet, growth rates... and that seemed to be just the tip of the iceberg. But nowhere, nowhere did it tell her if patients had recovered or not, or if any of them had passed away. If they were dead, it was just the loss of one prescription.
She always talked about competing for growth rates, and the bonuses that it included. Basically, doctors who sold a lot of drugs were invited to gatherings in the Caribbean, expenses paid of course, where all of the top sales reps would also be enjoying the conference as well.
The whole thing was really sickening. I talked to one doctor that said he felt pressured to prescribe pills, not necessarily by the drug companies, but by his patients. They come in, malnourished, overweight, smoking, and not getting any exercise, and ask for help with their cholesterol. What he should tell them is that they need to stop smoking, prescribe an hour of exercise a day, and a new diet. Instead, he writes them a script, is one step closer to getting a free vacation, and his patients get to continue abusing themselves guilt free.
This is one of the many reasons we need to move to a system where the incentive is to keep people healthy instead of keeping them sick. As the baby boomers continue to age, this dogmatic adherence to the "free market" could quite possibly bankrupt us.
Long term effect of vaccination ? How about the same as long term effect as other vaccination ? You are not introducing PERMANENTLY something in the system, the vaccination product may well be flushed rather quickly out of the system. You are teaching the immune system to react to a specific part of what youa re immunizing against. I am not a biologist, but looks to me you are confusing long term effect of a chemical in the body (like for example AZT) with long term effect of the immune system being able to recognize a foreign host...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
My brother's GF was a representative for a pharma company for a few years. She is quite good-looking, which helps in achieving your targets of course. She always had a trunk full of expensive gifts like coffee machines and other stuff to give to doctors to promote medicines. When I told her that in normal Dutch this is called bribery she was mad at me and told her the doctors actually have to do a lot to get those things. They have to give the company data on how the patients react to the drugs, something that the secretary can get out of her computer with a few keystrokes. Hard work indeed, for the doctor. Those doctors were also often invited to a tropical paradise to see presentations about new medicines. Of course they didn't have to pay for those trips.
-- Cheers!
I don't sense much bias in your comment, (for which you are to be congratulated), but I do take exception with some of your statements.
Living in Canada, I've known numerous older people, (over 60) who receive excellent health care. Elaborate heart surgeries and such. Nobody seems to think that they're being given second rate care or that preferential treatment is being given to younger people. I've never even heard that idea floated until you brought it up just now. My grandfather is in his 80's and two years ago he was treated successfully for cancer. He's still quite active for a very old dude, and he has a lot of respect for his doctors.
Just FYI.
-FL
Mind blowing. Unbridled capitalism at its finest.
Unless you are of course, watching an American channel being broadcast in Canada. Which makes up a large portion of stations we have available.
Signs you are watching American Channel:
1. Drug propaganda public service announcements.
2. Anti Abortion commercials
3. Pharmaceutical commercials, with death as a side effect (laugh every time).
4. Some sort of community college commercial with some overly average guy yelling at you to go to school.
5. Really, really bad local commercials (Halloween Costume Warehouse).
6. Really dark and even disturbing commercials that turn out to be some politician bashing another (often not realizing until end of commercial)
7. Do you have BAD CREDIT, well we have got a number for you....
8. Fast Food
9. Walmart
We've also all seen the classical antidepressant commercial. Some guy "hurts everywhere" and "everyone". Then he pops a couple cute little pills and "everywhere" and "everyone" magically stops hurting - whatever problems he may have had with his health or his career or his relationships or his dog are magically cured by those cute little pills.
Never felt more betrayed than by the cold and flu ads. They show someone miserable at night but he pops the meds and the next morning he doesn't even look like he's been sick! I know damn well the super model beer commercial fantasy is more likely to happen than that!
I remember puking my guts out in the early morning and feeling shocked that the pharmaceutical companies would lie to us so brazenly in the commercials. Then I realized just how sick I must be to find this surprising.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Well, there are things that you can't ingest as fast as you would need for it to kill you.
I guess, even though your comment is anecdotal, that it's somewhat similar to Stevia. A sweetener made from a plant. It's used by American natives for thousands of years. :)
To get to the point: Monsanto, makers of the cancerous Aspartame (who else? ^^), ordered a study. The result was, that you could become sterile from it. (Stay with me.)
What they did not really put their emphasis on, was that the amount you had to eat, for it to be any dangerous, would be half of your body weight. Every single day.
Try that with salt. ^^ Or even with water! (Yes. Too much water can kill you too. Same as not enough of it.)
Or, well, pot.
You know where I'm going with this...
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
For some reason, all these countries which have socialized medicine and which will let older people die without treatment all seem to be ahead as far as life expectancy goes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
US is at rank 45 behind Japan, Canada and pretty much all of Europe.
I can't speak about the elderly visiting the US to get treatment, but I can tell you that I was in Tijuana, on the border to the US last year, and I saw firsthand that the medical industry seems very prominent in that city. I think you can reach the same conclusion that I came to when I observed this, although I have to admit I have no further data to back my suppositions.
Tis a nice double standard, when you look at it. "It's a global market" scream the corporations, "if we can get labor cheaper in Mexico/China/Eastern Europe, we should be able to!". "It's a global market," scream the people, "if we can get our pharmaceuticals cheaper in Canada, the UK, Mexico, we should be able to!". "No, you shouldn't. And we'll lobby to make it illegal, under the guise of quality control, even if you are buying the exact same drug."