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Healthy Skepticism Library item: 16425

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

Rein in the drug companies
The Brattleboro Reformer Date uncertain 2009 Sep 4
http://www.reformer.com/ci_13274447


Full text:

Rarely has a company been more deserving of $2.3 billion in federal fines than Pfizer.
The world’s largest pharmaceutical company and maker of such best sellers such as Viagra, Zoloft, and Lipitor was hit this week with the largest-ever penalty by federal prosecutors for violations of federal drug rules.
Under terms of the settlement, Pfizer must pay $1 billion to compensate Medicaid, Medicare, and other federal health care programs. Some of that money will be shared among the states. There’s also a $1.2 billion criminal fine and a $100 million criminal forfeiture.
The feds charge that Pfizer engaged in illegal drug promotions that invited doctors to consultant meetings at resort locations, with free golf, massages, and other perks. The government also said Pfizer paid kickbacks to market a host of their big-name drugs.
The junkets and kickbacks were designed to promote drugs to doctors for unapproved uses and dosages, and were backed by false and misleading claims about safety and effectiveness. While the use of drugs for so-called “off-label” use is not uncommon, drug manufacturers are prohibited from marketing drugs for uses that have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
The $2.3 billion was the fourth such settlement of government charges in the last decade. Even as Pfizer was negotiating deals for past misconduct, the feds say the company continued to violate the very same laws by marketing other drugs. As a
result, the government will monitor Pfizer for the next five years. Pfizer will be required to notify doctors about Wednesday’s agreement and encourage them to report any similar behavior. The company will also have to publicly post any payments or perks it gives to doctors.
While the U.S. drug industry has paid out more than $11 billion in such settlements over the past decade, it’s chump change.
With drug spending in the U.S, estimated to total $3.3 trillion over the next decade, a fine like Pfizer’s is seen as part of the cost of doing business. After all, when Pfizer originally disclosed the settlement figure, it also announced plans to acquire rival drug company Wyeth for $68 billion. That deal, which would solidify Pfizer’s position as the world’s top drugmaker by revenue, is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
The obscene profits of the drug companies allow them to do more than just wink at federal laws. It allows them to write those
laws. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, there are more than 1,300 people lobbying for the drug industry in Washington — roughly one in 10 of all the lobbyists in the capitol.
In 2008, the drug industry spent $234 million on lobbying. When the health care debate heated up, it pumped up its spending even more, to an average of more than $1.2 million a day. It should be no surprise that the opponents of health care reform in Congress are among the top recipients of drug company money. And these figures don’t include polling, advertising and research.
That’s why Americans pay nearly twice as much for their prescription drugs as people in countries like Canada and Germany.
That’s why the drug companies need to be reined in if we are to ever see real reform of this nation’s health care system.

 

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