Healthy Skepticism Library item: 12472

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Congress Launches Investigation Of Advertising For Cholesterol Drug Vytorin
FinancialWire 2008 Jan 17
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/01/17/3215469.htm

Full text:

Congress has launched an investigation of advertising for the cholesterol-busting drug Vytorin following a study that suggested the pill may have no advantage over a generic
cholesterol medicine, according to letters released Wednesday.
Representatives John Dingell and Bart Stupak have addressed letters to Schering-Plough Corp. and Merck & Co., which jointly sell Vytorin, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in which they raised questions about the ads for the medicine.
The congressmen wrote that the House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce and its Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations are probing the “withholding of clinical trial data that may significantly affect the medical management of hypercholesterolemia, as well as the use of misleading statement in direct-to-consumer advertisements for prescription medicines.”
The congressmen also asked the companies for records related to the ads as well materials related to Enhance study leader John Kastelein, a cardiologist in the Netherlands. They also seek information about the press release this Monday that disclosed the Enhance results, almost
two years after the last patient completed the study.