THE DRUG INDUSTRY IS BRIBING OUR DOCTORS AS WELL AS OUR LEGISLATORS CROOK ALERT!! 10-16-09
763-2-09NYTimes--Scandal at Harvard Medical School
- Harvard Medical School gets an F in Ethics
Harvard should be embarrassed by the F grade it recently received from the American Medical Student Association, a national group that rates how well medical schools monitor and control drug industry money.
10-15-09 No Exoneration for Bone Study Doctor Kuklo
- Dr. Kuklo Committed Research Misconduct in Medtronic Bone Study
Dr. Kuklo resigned at Washington Univ. amid a controversy over the study of a Medtronic bone growth, Infuse. Dr. Kuklo did the research in question while a surgeon at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He became a highly paid consutant of Medtronic.
9-6-09Pfizer Will Quickly Recoup Record $2.3 Billion Fine
- $2.3 Billion "Slap on Pfizer's Wrist?"
Prosecutors said Pfizer promoted 4 drugs for medical conditions not approved for the drugs. They also accused Pfizer of plying doctors with free golf, massages and resort junkets.
9-2-09 Harvard Med School Drops Media Policy
- Harvard Med School Drops Restriction on Student Contacts with Media
Harvard Medical School is backing off a new student policy that would have restricted interaction with the news media after students complained it would chill their ability to talk about current issues in medicine, school officials said Tuesday.
9-02-09 NY Times--Pfizer Pays $2.3 Billion to Settle Marketing Case
- Pfizer Pays $2.3 Billion for "Stay Out of Jail Card"
WASHINGTON — Top aides in the Obama administration announced a $2.3 billion settlement on Wednesday with the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. over the company’s illegal promotion of its now-withdrawn painkiller, Bextra.
9-2-09 NY Times Forest Lab's Plan to Promote Costly Drug
- How Forest Labs Promotes a Costly Drug
The pharmaceutical industry has developed thousands of medicines that have saved millions of lives, but it has also used its marketing muscle to peddle expensive pills that are no more effective than older drugs sold at a fraction of the cost.
6-6-09 Former Army Surgeon Timothy Kuklo Still on Medtronic's Payroll
- Army Surgeon Apparently Still on Medtronic Payroll
Medtronic financed Kuklo’s research and travel while he was at Walter Reed and hired him as a consultant when he took his academic post. Kuklo did not disclose his Medtronic relationship in the article.Medtronic declined to say how much it paid him.
Walter Reed Doctor Falsified Study on Medtronic Product Duff Wilson and Harry Meier in the NYTimes 5-13-09
- Army Doctor Falsifies Study of Medtronic Bone Repair Product "Infuse"
A former surgeon at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, who is a paid consultant for Medtronic, published a study that made false claims and overstated the benefits of the company’s product in treating soldiers severely injured in Iraq.
U.S. Doctors are Wined and Dined by Drug Sales Reps
Four out of five U.S. doctors surveyed said they let drug and device makers buy them food and drinks despite recent efforts to tighten ethics rules and avoid conflicts of interest.
The survey also found that family doctors were more likely to meet with industry sales representatives, and that cardiologists were more likely to pocket fees than other specialists.
The study is the first to document the extent of the relationships between doctors and sales reps since 2002, when an industry group adopted voluntary guidelines discouraging companies from giving doctors gifts or tickets. [Comment: what about medical ethics guidelines for doctors?] In general, researchers found that hardly anything had changed since studies a couple of years earlier.
"These studies are fairly disturbing. There appears to be no dialing back at all on these relationships," said Merrill Goozner of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
The survey, published in today's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, was done by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital, Yale University and the University of Melbourne in Australia. (From an AP article in the Detroit Free Press.)
Institute of Medicine Report Calls for Drug Companies to Stop Gifts to Doctors
4-29-09 The NY Times reported today that a report by the prestigious Institute of Medicine which is part of the National Academy of Sciences calls for doctors to stop taking gifts from drug and medical device makers.
The report stated "It is time for medical schools to end a number of long-accepted relationships and practices that create conflicts of interest, threaten the integrity of their missions and their reputations and put public trust in jeopardy."
The report calls for Congress to pass legislation that would require drug and device makers to publicly disclose all payments made to doctors. Senators Grassley, Republican, and Kohl, Democrat have co-sponsored legislation that would do just that.
Drug companies spend billions of dollars wooing doctors--more than they spend on research or consumer advertising--which contributes to the excessive cost of health care in the U.S. The majority of the money is spent on giving doctors free drug samples, free food, free medical refresher courses and payments for marketing lectures which typically consist of reading or presenting material prepared by the drug companies. The Institute's report recommends that these efforts end.
Last year in a tiny nod to appease critics, several big drug companies agreed to stop giving pens, coffee mugs, paper pads and other small gifts to doctors but defended the other activities as allegedly contributing to both doctors and their patients. Here's a link to a NY Times article by Gardiner Harris dated 4-29-09--
Drug Companies are Bribing our Doctors
- Crook Alert!! Drug Companies Are Bribing Our Doctors and Exerting Undue Influence on Medical Researc
U.S. Doctors are Wined and Dined by Drug Sales Reps Four out of five U.S. doctors surveyed said they let drug and device makers buy them food and drinks despite recent efforts to tighten ethics rules and avoid conflicts of interest.
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Comments
Panel finds that Dr. Kuklo committed "research misconduct" in forgery of other doctors' signatures in support of his study of Medtronic bone growth product, Infuse.
Ralph Deeds says:
3 months ago
Editor
New York Times
Re: Harvard Drops Media Restriction Policy
The fact that Harvard Medical School adopted such an ill-advised policy shows that it is not dealing with the fact that its doctors are feeding at the pharmaceutical industry trough like hogs down on the farm. I wonder what Harvard president Drew Faust has to say about this matter? Is the Medical School de facto beyond her authority to control?
Ralph Deeds