Crook Alert!! Drug and Medical Device Companies Are Bribing Our Doctors and Exerting Undue Influence on Research
83What are these doctors hiding from us?
4-12-12NYTimes--Johnson and Johnson Fined $1.2 Billion for Concealing Hazards of Antipsychotic Drug Risperdal
- Drug Giant Is Fined $1.2 Billion in Risperdal Case - NYTimes.com
A judge fined Johnson & Johnson and a subsidiary after a jury found that the companies minimized or concealed the dangers associated with Risperdal, an antipsychotic drug.
1-15-12NYTimes--Federal Government Will Require Drug Companies to Report Payments to Doctors
- U.S. to Tell Drug Makers to Disclose Payments to Doctors - NYTimes.com
To head off medical conflicts of interest, the companies would be required to disclose what they pay doctors for research, consulting, speaking, travel and entertainment.
4-9-11NYTimes--Johnson & Johnson Coughs Up $70 Million to Settle Criminal Charges of Bribing European Doctors
- Johnson & Johnson Settles Bribery Case - NYTimes.com
The company will pay $70 million to settle a complaint that it paid bribes and kickbacks to win business overseas.
3-9-11NYT--Ethics Survey for Doctors
- Ethics Survey for Doctors - NYTimes.com
First, do no harm? For some doctors that may not be the case, at least when money is involved. A new study of thousands of doctors found that just 8 of 10 strongly agreed that they should put patient welfare before their own financial interests.
12-5-10NYTimes---Abbott Labs, St.Joseph Medical Center, Cardiologist, Dr.Mark Midei Accused of Unnecessary Procedures
- Abbott, Cardiologist Dr. Mark Midei, St. Joseph Medical Center Accused of Installing Unneeded Stents
What was going on in Baltimore is going on right now in every city in America, said Dr. Steven Nissen, chief of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, who said he routinely treats patients who have been given multiple unneeded stents....
9-14-10NYTimes--Medical Industry Ties Often Undisclosed in Journals
- Medical Device Companies Paying Millions to Doctors for Articles in Medical Journals
Five medical device companies paid $250 million to consultants for medical articles in 2007, including royalties. Zimmer paid $87 million; DePuy Orthopaedics, $63 million;Stryker, $45 million; Biomet,$27 million; and Smith & Nephew, $24 million.
8-13-10NYTimes--Merck, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lily, Medtronic Under Investigation for Overseas Bribery on Drug Tests
- Drug Companies Under Investigation for Bribery Overseas in Violation of Foreign Corrupt Practices Ac
At least a dozen big drug and device makers are under investigation by federal prosecutors and securities regulators in a broadening inquiry of bribery as to whether the companies may have made payments to foreign doctors and health officials.
7-22-10NYTimes--Harvard Medical School Belatedly Limits Payments By Drug Companies to Faculty
- Big Pharma Reined in at Harvard Medical School
Professors at Harvard Medical School will no longer be able to take industry money to speak for drug or medical device companies or accept gifts, travel or meals under a new conflict-of-interest policy announced Wednesday.
2-23-10 NYTimes--Is Something Rotten in Denmark (Glaxo)?
- Serious Questions Raised Anew about Glaxo's Avandia
The battle over Avandia has begun anew, and issues raised in the meeting between the four executives and Dr. Nissen are likely to be raised again. During the meeting, Glaxo executives promised to begin a crucial analysis of the safety within days.
Why is Manoj Smiling?
NYTimes 1-16-10 Johnson & Johnson Accused of Drug Kickbacks
- Johnson & Johnson Accused of Drug Kickbacks
Johnson & Johnson paid kickbacks to the nations largest nursing home pharmacy to increase the number of elderly patients taking the antipsychotic Risperdal and other medications, according to a complaint filed 1-15 by the U.S. Atty. in Boston.
11-3-09 NYTimes Eli Lily Pays Off 3,971 Doctors Indluding One from Stanford Medical School
- Dr. Manoj V. Waikar, of Stanford Medical School on the Payroll of Lily and Other Drug Companies
Dr. Waikar, a psychiatrist in Palo Alto, Calif., is also an adjunct clinical instructor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
How to cheat at everything.
11-3-09 NYTimes Health Reform and Doctor's Conflicts
- Health Reform Bills Aim to Curb Doctors' Conflicts Over Drug Company Payments
The targets are common business practices like drug company payments to doctors for speeches and consulting services, which have the potential to influence patient care and drive up the nations medical bills.
Conflicts of Interest at Harvard Medical School??
Comment on Harvard Alumni Magazine article 9-15-09
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September 15, 2009
I’m glad that President Drew Faust “is on it” wrt Harvard’s financial situation and endowment. However, I would have liked to hear that she’s “on it” wrt the shameful conflicts of interest arising out of improper financial relationships between Medical School professors and drug companies. The fact that the Medical School recently adopted a policy requiring advance permission from the school administration from students for contacts with the media indicates that the School has not come to grips with the situation, even though the policy has been rescinded. Newspaper accounts that Dean Jeffrey Flier sees no conflicts indicate that the matter requires the attention of President Faust and the Board of Overseers. Perhaps a search committee for a new dean should be established.
ralph deeds, MBA 1960
Vermont Passes Law Requiring Disclosure of Payments to Doctors NYTimes 5-19-09
- Disclosure of Medical Industry Payments to Doctors Required by New Vermont Law
The law, scheduled to take effect on July 1, is believed to be the most stringent state effort to regulate the marketing of medical products to doctors. It would also ban nearly all industry gifts, including meals, to doctors, nurses, medical staff,
4-29-09 Institute of Medicine Calls for Doctors to Stop Taking Gifts from Drug Makers
The Institute of Medicine issued a critical report calling for doctors to stop taking money, free drug samples and other gifts from drug and medical device companies. "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 concluded.
The report calls on Congress to pass legislation that would require drug and device makers to publicly disclose all pamyments made to doctors.
Drug companies spend billions of dollars wooing doctors--more than they spend on research or comsumer advertising. Much of this money is spent on giving doctors free drug samples, free food, free medical refresher courses and payments for marketing lectures. the Institute's report recommends that nearly all of these efforts end.
In a tiny nod to appease critics, last year several major drug companies agreed to stop giving pens, pads, and other gifts of small value, but defended other practices as valuable to doctors and patients. Here's a link to a NY Times article by Gardiner Harris on the Institute of Medicine's highly critical report.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/health/policy/29drug.html?scp=3&sq=Gardiner%20harris&st=cse
Are Big Drug Companies Bribing Our Doctors and Medical Researchers?
Minnesota is the first of a few states to require drug companies to disclose payments to doctors. The records of these payments are quite revealing. From 1997 to 2005 drug makers paid more than 5,500 doctors, nurses and other health care workers in Minnesota at least $57 million. Another $40 million went to clinics, research centers and other organizations. The median payment per consultant was $1,000; more than 100 people received more than $100,000.
Doctors typically receive money for delivering lectures about drugs to other doctors. Some of the doctors receiving the most money sit on panels that prepare guidelines inctructing doctors nationwide about when to use medicines.
Comments:
"I hate to say it out loud, but it all comes down to ways to manipulate doctors."
Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau, former sales rep for Bristol-Meyers
"If a doctor says that he got flown to Maui, stayed at the Four Seasons--and it didn't influence him a bit? Please."
Jamie Reidy, a drug sales rep for Pfizer and Eli Lily who was fired in 2005 after writing a humorous book on his experiences.
"You're paying him for the talk. You're increasing his referral base so he's getting more patients. And you;re helping to develop his name. The hope in all this is that a silent quid quo pro is created. I've done so much for you, the only think I need from you is that you write more of my products."
Gene Carbona, who left Merck as a regional sales manager in 2001.
Between 1997 and 2005, Dr. Grimm earned more than $796,000 from drug companies. In 2003 alone, Pfizer paid Dr. Grimm more than $231,000. Pfizer markets Lipitor, a cholesterol drug that last year had $12.9 billion in sales, more than any other drug in the world.
Dr. Donald Hunninghake served on a government-sponsored advisory panel that wrote guidelines for when people should get cholesterol-lowering pills. The panel's 2004 recommendations that far more people get the drugs became controversial when it was revealed that eight of nine members had financial ties to drug makers. The full extent of those ties have never been revealed.
In 1988 alone, Pfizer paid Dr. Hunningshake $147,000, and he earned at least $420,000 from drug makers between 1997 and 2003.
Comment: Judges are expected to disqualify themselves from cases in which they have a personal interest or even an appearance of bias. Apparently medical ethics don't include such a rule or expectation.
Here's a link to a 3-21-07 NYTimes story by Gardner Harris and Janet Roberts:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/21/us/21drug.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Secret Drug Company Payments to Doctors
Physicians Bribery a Look at This Common Medical Industry Practice
The Journal of the American Medical Association Says Doctors Should Stop Taking Bribes from Drug Companies
IN SOME STATES THE MAKER OVERSEES THE USE OF ITS OWN DRUG
- Drug Companies Oversee Use of Their Drugs
Conflict of interest? Hidden agenda? Or legitimate cost containment mechanism?
I can believe it.
That's terrible, how can the call themselves doctors for wrongfully prescribing things like that. If those doctors are having that much trouble with finance they should talk to a financial consultant.
This a terrible, disgusting story. You want to trust doctors, not think of them as tools of a large corporation. I read recently that the Big Flu Scare of, I think it was 2003, was just a marketing gimmick because the drug company that produced flu shots was left with a big backlog in their warehouses. They had expected a lot more people to get flu shots in 02 so were stuck with excess product.
Who can you believe anymore?
Five years ago, doctors were giving out Exelon to anyone who said they had a memory problem. It is for Alzheimer's patients. It causes hallucinations in 9% of test subjects. Now it is being aggressively advertised on TV. They will make billions, and I expect when the lawsuits start coming in, they will pay a few million, and think of another way to scam people.
Thanks for your comment!
Go for it! Loving this one!
This is an old sad story. The industry even bribes front desk people with pizzas, more extravagant meals, medicines, pens, and other wasteful goodies. Great hub.
"Qi bono?" -Latin for "who gets paid?" You've folowed the money and thus the true motive of our supposed scientists. Scientists are supposed to be ojective and look at evidence without bias. It appears they are biased here.
The faculty at Harvard Medical School and other medical schools are among the biggest hogs feeding at the trough of the drug companies. The dean at Harvard doesn't see any problem, last I heard.
Johnson & Johnson paid kickbacks to the nation’s largest nursing home pharmacy to increase the number of elderly patients taking the antipsychotic Risperdal and several other medications, according to a complaint filed Friday by the office of the United States attorney in Boston.
Risperdal is approved to treat schizophrenia, but not specifically approved to treat problems in elderly people with dementia.
The payments violated the federal anti-kickback statute and led Omnicare, a pharmacy company specializing in dispensing drugs to nursing home residents, to submit false claims to Medicaid, the complaint charged.
Three years ago, Dr. Steven E. Nissen, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic, conducted a landmark study that suggested that the best-selling diabetes drug Avandia raised the risk of heart attacks. The study led to a Congressional inquiry, stringent safety warnings, a sharp drop in the drug’s sales and a plunge in the share price of GlaxoSmithKline, Avandia’s maker.
Professors at Harvard Medical School will no longer be able to take industry money to speak for drug or medical device companies or accept gifts, travel or meals under a new conflict-of-interest policy announced Wednesday.
NYTimes 7-22-10
8-13-10 NYTimes--At least a dozen major drug and device makers are under investigation by federal prosecutors and securities regulators in a broadening inquiry of bribery allegations as to whether the companies may have made payments to foreign doctors and health officials.
In previous investigations, federal officials have charged that many of these kinds of payments were made to encourage doctors to order their products. In the United States, doctors routinely market drugs and devices to their colleagues and other health professionals at medical conventions and small gatherings in restaurants. Such consulting arrangements are legal in the United States as long as companies avoid paying doctors directly to write prescriptions.
But in most of the rest of the world, doctors are government employees. And even consulting arrangements that would be considered routine in the United States might violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, if the payments are outsized or the arrangements are not disclosed to governments.
Twenty-five out of 32 highly paid physician consultants to medical device companies in 2007, or their publishers, failed to reveal the financial connections in journal articles the following year, according to a study released on Monday.
The study compared major payments to consultants by orthopedic device companies with financial disclosures the consultants later made in medical journal articles, and found them lacking in public transparency.
“We found a massive, dramatic system failure,” said David J. Rothman, a professor and president of the Institute on Medicine as a Profession at Columbia University, who wrote the study with two other Columbia researchers, Susan Chimonas and Zachary Frosch.
The study, published on the Web site of The Archives of Internal Medicine, focused on 32 medical doctors and doctoral researchers who were each paid at least $1 million in 2007 and published one or more journal articles the next year.
Most of the doctors and most of the orthopedic journal articles did not disclose their financial relationships with companies, the study found.
“What was going on in Baltimore is going on right now in every city in America,” said Dr. Steven Nissen, chief of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, who said he routinely treats patients who have been given multiple unneeded stents. “We’re spending a fortune as a country on procedures that people don’t need.”
Well known that insurance companies dictates most of our medical treatments. It's a systemic profit versus health of the patient problem . Doctors have to pay for their progeny's braces :) . Your picture of the doctor smiling was a little unfair.
Johnson & Johnson coughs up $70 million to settle criminal charges of bribing European doctors to use it's products.
The case is the latest in a string of criminal investigations into illegal marketing practices by drug and device makers. Companies have repeatedly settled allegations that they paid kickbacks to doctors in the United States to induce them to prescribe drugs for, or implant medical devices in, patients who are unaware of their doctors’ financial incentives.
Would doctors truly allow themselves to be bribed by drug and medical device companies for financial purposes?
I personally have had a DePuy Pinnacle hip implant in the past after my doctor persuaded me to take the surgery. What's bothering me now are the ongoing lawsuits and complaints filed by those who were injured with the Pinnacle device. I'm still learning and reading more about its updates found on http://www.depuypinnaclelawsuit.com
What are your thoughts on the complaints filed by those injured on the Pinnacle device?
U.S. to Tell Drug Makers to Disclose Payments to Doctors - NYTimes.com
To head off medical conflicts of interest, the companies would be required to disclose what they pay doctors for research, consulting, speaking, travel and entertainment.
I too was bribed by my doctor to use a Stryker implant. I required a revision surgery 4 years later secondary to loud squeaking and horrendous pain in right hip joint. Funny thing, when I presented with unrelenting pain after my initial hip surgery, my surgeon turned a blind eye and abandoned my care. It took me several years of digging to uncover his motivation, or lack of. Stryker Corp has paid this doctor in excess of 600k for a number of years now. I have seven years to write to the medical board. It has taken me 5 yeasr to regain the energy, composure and fortitude to go ahead with that act, after all of the pain and deceit I have experienced at the hand of this so-called physician.
Thanks for your comment. Sorry for your bad experience.
Drug Giant Is Fined $1.2 Billion in Risperdal Case - NYTimes.com
A judge fined Johnson & Johnson and a subsidiary after a jury found that the companies minimized or concealed the dangers associated with Risperdal, an antipsychotic drug.
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HipHopHustler 4 years ago
I read on globalgrind.com that these companies are even bribing doctors in under developed countires to prescribe drugs patients don't even need with vacations, cars, cameras, and many more. A study found that drugs are wrongfully prescribed 50% of the time in these countries....