Work Place Stress

As mentioned in the previous report, Dr Joseph Ross
of New York Mount Sinai School of Medicine has been
reporting that doctors are placing their names on drug
reports which they had no actual part in researching or
testing. The end of the drug money trail may
not stop there.

The Journal of the American Medical Association
(JAMA) has been known as a very prestigious
medical publication. Articles appearing in the journal
were suppose to pass rigorous tests before publication.
Now an editorial in JAMA is claiming that at least some
of authors (doctors whose names appear on the
reports) played little direct roles in the drug studies or
review of the drug reports.

So what is the problem? Dr Ross has written reports of
this and the issue has been discussed by others. It
seems that JAMA published one of the Vioxx studies
and they were actually instrumental in promoting the
drug. Could the drug company’s profits leave a money
trai lead to someone’s pockets at the JAMA?

Who is looking out for our health care? The FDA, the
doctors and now this prestigious medical journal all
seemed to be tainted by drug companies profits. Is
our health care being controlled by large companies
whose only concern is about their bottom line profits?

In 2004 the Merck drug company was taken to court for
the class action suit against the drug Vioxx, which was
linked to heart attacks. Merck had to pay
4.85 billion dollars for the settlement.

Unknown to Merck, the Vioxx settlement was not the
end of the drug scandal. Dr. Joseph Ross of the
New York Mount Sinai School of Medicine was alerted
to various other unethical processes involving
drug companies.

Dr Ross has reported that Merck and other drug
companies actually pay money to medical doctors to
place their names on drug companies reports. The drug
companies pay outside medical writers to draft the
reports and then have the doctors sign their names to
the report for a price. No one is saying what price is
needed to get the doctors to sign.

Merck did admit that they do hire so called ghost
writers to draft the reports, but couldn’t see what
harm was done if someone else wrote the report as
long as it is what the doctors claimed.

After more pressure, the drug lawyers went as far
as to state that the report reflect the “opinions” of
the doctors whose name appear on the reports.

Are the lawyers saying that an “opinion” is the same
as having done the actual research which lead to the
end results? The main question is whether the doctors
were involved in the actual testing of the drugs, not
what opinion they have of the drugs.

Everyone has an opinion, but the research and drug
testing are suppose to be based on actual “facts”.

Doctors aren’t saying much about the situation.

The FDA approved a new medication, an inhaled insulin
product called Exubera. There was a marketing
agreement by 2 drugs companies, Nektar and Pfizer
for the product.

The product was on the market for 6 months and it
was not selling. The warning label linked the use of
the drug with lung cancer. It seems the general
public didn’t think the risk of lung cancer was worth
the “convenience” of using an inhaler.

Pfizer pulled out of the agreement to market the
product. You would think no one would be part of
a drug that was linked to causing cancer, but these
were drug companies who run things differently. A
cancer link would be a good reason to want out of
the agreement but that isn’t the reason Pfizer wanted
out. The product wasn’t on track to make
enough money.

The big question should be why did the FDA allow this
product to be placed on the market? Of course the
FDA did require the warning label placed on the
product packaging. This is sufficient proof of how the
FDA is monitoring the safety of drugs for the market
place. I wonder who is monitoring the people at the
FDA? Better question is why do people at the FDA
think the risk of lung cancer is
not a public health danger?

Then think twice about a product that has been FDA
approved when a doctor tells you “the drug is safe,
it is FDA approved”. You know the government
department, FDA that was given the power to monitor
market place products to protect the public’s health.
READ IT AGAIN if you have any doubts about where
the drug companies values are.

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