Pharmaceutical industry

Maker of children's drugs accused of hiding Motrin recall from public

Sujets: 
Pharmaceutical industry
Scores: 
0

Lyndsey Layton – Friday, May 28, 2010

The company at the center of a massive recall of children's Tylenol and other popular over-the-counter products tried to perform a "phantom recall" of defective Motrin by sending contractors around the country to buy up the medicine from stores without alerting regulators or the public, according to the chairman of a Congressional committee investigating the company.

When faced last year with Motrin IB caplets that were not dissolving properly, McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a division of Johnson and Johnson, hired contractors to buy the products under orders not to mention the term "recall," according to documents released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

For Drug Company Whistleblowers, Hardship Often Follows

Sujets: 
Whistleblowers, Pharmaceutical industry, Qui tam or False Claims Act
Scores: 
5

Karen Pallarito, HealthDay Reporter – May 12, 2010

Ordinary citizens who "blow the whistle" on drug companies for ripping off Medicare and Medicaid are motivated by ethics more so than the financial rewards they reap, yet the personal toll they endure can be substantial and long-lasting, a new study finds.

For 82 percent of these "insiders" -- pharmaceutical manufacturer employees who become whistleblowers -- filing a health fraud complaint led to unwanted pressures from their employer, including being fired, intimidated or blackballed.

Feds Found Pfizer Too Big to Nail

Sujets: 
White-collar crime, Pharmaceutical industry
Scores: 
0

Drew Griffin and Andy Segal – April 3, 2010

Imagine being charged with a crime, but an imaginary friend takes the rap for you.

That is essentially what happened when Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company, was charged with illegally marketing Bextra, a painkiller that was taken off the market in 2005 because of safety concerns.

WHO accused of losing public confidence over flu pandemic

Sujets: 
Pharmaceutical industry, World Health Organization, Conflict of interest
Scores: 
0

Sarah Boseley – The Guardian, March 28, 2010

Loss of credibility could endanger lives, says vice chair of Council of Europe's health committee.

The World Health Organisation and other public health bodies have "gambled away" public confidence by overstating the dangers of the flu pandemic, according to a draft report to the Council of Europe. The report, by the Labour MP Paul Flynn, vice chair of the council's health committee, says that a loss of credibility could endanger lives.

Did WHO experts fuel swine flu scare?

Sujets: 
Pharmaceutical industry, World Health Organization, Conflict of interest
Scores: 
0

Rema Nagarajan , TNN, 13 January 2010

Even as questions are being raised about whether the swine flu scare was exaggerated to benefit pharma companies, evidence has surfaced that several members of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) vaccine board which pushed countries to buy the H1N1 vaccine have had significant ties with pharma companies.

This fact, which is bound to raise issues of conflict of interest, was exposed by Danish daily ‘Information’ last month. TOI attempted to get WHO’s response, but several emails sent to the office of the WHO director-general on January 9 met with no response.

Whose bread you eat, his song you sing

Sujets: 
White-collar crime, Pharmaceutical industry, Conflict of interest
Scores: 
0

Why doctors and researchers should take a pass on drug industry money

Arthur Schafer, University of Manitoba – Canadian Dimension Magazine, Jan-Feb 2010

The sad fact is that virtually all of modern medicine floats on a sea of drug company money. So when your doctor pulls out her prescription pad, chances are high that the doctor’s decision to prescribe a particular medication will have been influenced by industry-sponsored clinical trials, published in industry-funded medical journals and extolled at industry-funded Continuing Medical Education events.

EU to probe pharma over “false pandemic”

Sujets: 
Council of Europe, Pharmaceutical industry, World Health Organization
Scores: 
0

January 4, 2010

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.”

Aubrey Blumsohn: Academic who took on industry

Sujets: 
Corporate ethics, Pharmaceutical industry, Academia, Science
Scores: 
0

Clare Dyer – January 2, 2010

“Scientists since Galileo have realised you can’t be a scientist without data,” observes Aubrey Blumsohn. It seems a statement of the obvious, but he welcomes the General Medical Council’s recognition in the case of Richard Eastell, the former colleague whom he reported to the GMC, that “data” mean raw data, not summary data produced by a drug company’s in-house statistician.

That recognition, he believes, vindicates the stand he took when he fought US based Procter and Gamble (P&G) Pharmaceuticals, which refused him access to the raw data for research Professor Eastell and he were leading on the company’s osteoporosis drug risedronate between 2002 and 2005. His determination eventually forced the company to release the data in 2006, but it cost him his job as senior lecturer in metabolic bone medicine at Sheffield University and led him to abandon his career as a clinical researcher.

Scientists protest appointment of Pfizer boss to health panel

Sujets: 
Pharmaceutical industry, Pfizer, Conflict of interest, Health care, Appointments process, Revolving door, Science
Scores: 
0

By Margaret Munro, Canwest News Service – December 7, 2009

Opposition continues to mount against the Harper government's appointment of a top pharmaceutical executive to the council governing Canada's largest health-research agency.

More than 3,700 people, including several prominent ethicists and researchers, have signed a petition calling for the withdrawal of the appointment of Dr. Bernard Prigent, vice-president and medical director of Pfizer Canada, to the governing council of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research.

British doctor faces action over claims of 'ghost writing' for US drug company

Sujets: 
Drug safety, Pharmaceutical industry, Conflict of interest, Professional ethics
Scores: 
0

Sarah Boseley, health editor
guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 September 2009 21.56 BST

Doctors have been agreeing to be named as authors on studies written by employees of the pharmaceutical industry, giving greater credibility to medical research, according to new evidence.

The Guardian has learned that one of Britain's leading bone specialists is facing disciplinary action over accusations that he was involved in "ghost writing".

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