Pushing Pills for Profit

Submitted by Diane Farsetta on

Concerns about the safety of Pfizer's Celebrex, Merck's Vioxx and other so-called COX-2 inhibitor drugs represent "perhaps the clearest instance yet of how the confluence of medicine and marketing can turn hope into hype - and how difficult it is for the Food and Drug Administration to monitor the safety of drugs after they have been approved for the market," reports the New York Times. "Having spent hundreds of millions of dollars to develop their drugs, the makers of Celebrex and Vioxx, cheered on by Wall Street, had every motivation to expand their markets." Massive advertising campaigns targeted to consumers and health professionals drove "consumer demand for COX-2 drugs far beyond ... those patients who really benefit from them."

Main Source: 
New York Times, December 19, 2004
Topics: 
Health

Comments

turnergunter replied on

I have a sneaking suspicion that most, if not all, of the pharmaceutical companies are headed by CEO's who are staunchly Republican. Has anyone researched this? What makes me suspicious is their way-too-cozy relationship with the FDA, their end-run marketing campaigns past the doctors straight to consumers, their ability to create false levels of alarm with the public by labeling common maladies as "diseases" so they can then market their "solutions", their willingness to push products that they know aren't safe at the time of final FDA approval, and their universal unwillingness to pull products off the market once safety questions are raised (in other words, before enough profits have been earned). Hmmm... Turner N. Gunter III, Pres./CEO Opportunity Knocks, Inc. info@opportunityknocksinc.com