The truth about the pharmaceutical industry part 1

The truth about the pharmaceutical industry
Sunday, February 22, 2009

"This industry is now primarily a marketing machine to sell drugs with a dubious action, and she used her wealth and influence in turn to any authority which stands in the way for competition to stand."

The book review below, is translated from the prestigious journal "New England Journal of Medicine." It clearly shows how corrupt the pharmaceutical industry and health care have become. The author of the book, Marcia angells, MD, is a former editor of the same, well-respected journal. Today she is professor in social medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Her book, The Truth About the Drug Companies, offers another revealing picture of how the greed of the many facets of business and government to determine, and presents a number of powerful ideas for what we can do about it.

New England Journal of Medicine Volume 351:1580-1581, October 7, 2004, number 15.

"The combined profits of the ten pharmaceutical companies in the Fortune 500 (35.9 billion dollars) were greater than the gains of all remaining 490 companies together (33.7 billion dollars) in 2002. During the past twenty years the pharmaceutical industry far astray of its original high purpose of discovering and producing good new drugs. This industry is now primarily a marketing machine to sell drugs with a dubious operation, and uses its wealth and influence to any authority which stands in the way for competition to stand, including the U.S. Congress, the Food and Drug Administration, academic medical centers, and medicine itself. "Drs. Marcia angells, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. From her controversial book, "The truth about drug manufacturers." (Transl.)


The Truth About the Drug Companies
And what to do about it

Book Review gechreven by John Hoey, MD
Translation thanks to Paul Maarten Vis

Since her departure from the Journal has a look behind the scenes cast in 'Big Pharma', 'Big University "and" Big Faculty. Relying on its own work and its detailed analysis of research, financial statements of companies, and research on drug development and marketing, writes angells with the unequivocal and inflexible style that Journal readers are accustomed to her and to trust.
Sales Result: 200 billion dollars per year

Dr. Marcia angells know what they are talking.

Re: The truth about the pharmaceutical industry part 2

The current trend towards the commercialization and corruption of clinical research coincided with the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980, and the adoption of the Bayh-Dole Act, a new system of laws that universities and small companies gave permission and encouraged for discoveries from research sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to patent. Research which was paid by the taxpayer, and for the welfare of the same taxpayer, with immediate effect was a private and marketable product, a product with a performance of more than 200 billion dollars per year.

Research that was paid by the taxpayer and for the welfare of the same taxpayer, with immediate effect was a private and marketable product, a product with a performance of more than 200 billion dollars per year.

Commercialization had both specific and general effects. Readers of this magazine and other magazines are familiar with the investigations into the control that research sponsors at pharmaceutical companies perform in relation to the design and analysis of clinical trials (including the distortion of original standards in testing) and the issue of reporting, failure to report and false reporting of results.
Is Academic Medicine for Sale?

Angells reminds us of the increasingly closer set of relationships between the pharmaceutical industry and the faculties of universities. Not only narcissistic sponsors change the name of medical education, they also buy access to the best intellect of their faculties. Angells's examples of large sums money paid by industry to individual faculty members and scientists and directors of the NIH are bewildering.

The general effects are noticeable in the commercialization of universities, medical faculties and our profession in general. In a 2000 letter, written in response to an article in the Journal angells, "Is Academic Medicine for Sale?", A reader gave the following answer: "No.. The current owner is very happy with it. " The increasing intrusion of industry into medical education, and the almost total domination of the continuing medical education (especially regarding drugs) by the marketing departments of large pharmaceutical companies, is a scandal.
Largest lobby in Washington home

The largest drug lobby will take place in Washington.

Re: The truth about the pharmaceutical industry dpart 3

The same companies have also deep in the purse getast when government lobbying. According angells has Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the trade association of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, "the largest lobby in Washington, which in 2002 675 were employed lobbyists (including 26 former members of Congress), for an amount exceeding 91 million dollars. The result was an above average growth in profits under both Republican and Democratic governments.

The most recent and amazing lobbying effort led to the Congress an explicit ban imposed on Medicare for its enormous purchasing power to gain lower prices for medicines, and as a direct funding opportunities, in the form of higher prices for medicines, the taxpayer money to the industry. These changes, together with the changed of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1997, allowing direct-to-consumer "ads did not mention the need to make side (except the most severe), the profits further increase. The overall result is not only a corruption of science, but also the dissemination of science.

The most recent and amazing lobbying effort led to the Congress an explicit ban imposed on Medicare for its enormous purchasing power to gain lower prices for drugs
Big Pharma performs' pitiful '

Re: The truth about the pharmaceutical industry part 4

Angells document that, contrary to what they claim, large pharmaceutical companies' pitiful performance in the field of innovative research. In fact, as permitted by the Bayh-Dole Act, pharmaceutical companies buy discoveries in basic scientific enterprises, including universities and publicly funded institutions.

The actual costs of drug research by pharmaceutical companies are much lower than the often-mentioned 800 million dollars per new drug on the market. Most of their research is "me too" drugs-onorigineel, tax deductible (and therefore indirectly funded by the taxpayer), and largely superfluous. The big pharmaceutical companies ( "Big Pharma"), in essence, manufacturing and marketing companies.

Angells's concluding chapter, the least convincing in an otherwise fascinating and depth book contains all the predictable solutions: monitoring "me too" drugs, give the FDA more power, overseeing clinical trials of "Big Pharma", containment of validity and abuse of patents, like the pharmaceutical industry away from medical education, create financial statements of public companies (so we can see what the actual cost of medical research, apart from marketing), and set price controls or guidelines. Admittedly, the problems are so acute, and the tentacles of the industry are so intertwined with our way of life that's hard to see what else recommended it.

Not only our health and healthcare are at stake, but also the scientific research and the reputations of universities and governments.


The book by Marcia angells

But maybe angells right. We must change the way we research, development and distribution of new drugs regulate. Not only our health and healthcare are at stake, but also the scientific research and the reputations of universities and governments. The integrity of scientific research is too important to be left to the invisible hand of the market.

To The Truth About Drug Companies to purchase via amazon.com, click here. The quote at the beginning comes from Dr. Angells's own summary of her book in the New York Review of Books.


Source: wanttoknow