The April 2009 issue of Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin (DTB) contains an editorial and three articles. The editorial discusses drugs being prescribed by different people looking after the same patient (their GP and a specialist, for example) and the issues in terms of making sure this information is communicated so that unwanted drug interactions and unwanted effects are recognised. An associated podcast can be found on our website www.dtb.bmj.com. The issue also includes a review preventing recurrent venous thromboembolism, a review of drospirenone in HRT, and an explanatory articles about medical licensing, and a short correction for an article that appeared in DTB’s February 2009 issue: Oral or intramuscular B12?
At a giant meeting of more than 20,000 cardiologists, nurses and industry types, something’s missing: the ads.
It used to be that you could identify convention-goers by the drug advertisements that were plastered on their bags full of scientific abstracts, on the badges they wore around their necks and on the lanyards from which the badges hung.
Doctors looked “kind of like a Nascar driver,” says Jack Lewin, the chief executive of the American College of Cardiology (ACC), which runs the meeting. “Things have changed,” he says.
The ACC says it sacrificed nearly half a million dollars by getting rid of these ads. Last year, Pfizer paid $175,000 to get its cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor on the convention bags and another $70,000 to plaster Lipitor on the lanyards. Merck and Schering-Plough paid $50,000 to get their rival cholesterol drug, Vytorin, on the data cards that were affixed to every convention-goers badge.
Also missing is a CD that contained digital versions of all the scientific abstracts presented at the meeting; that was also paid for by sponsors in the past. The ACC says that has generated lots of complaints from doctors.
“None of us are invulnerable to advertising-related biases,” says Lewin. “I don’t think we should be walking around with advertisements on our backs.”
Forbes.com 31/3/9
AN international drug company made a hit list of doctors who had to be “neutralised” or discredited because they criticised the anti-arthritis drug the pharmaceutical giant produced.
Staff at US company Merck &Co emailed each other about the list of doctors - mainly researchers and academics - who had been negative about the drug Vioxx or Merck and a recommended course of action.
The email, which came out in the Federal Court in Melbourne yesterday as part of a class action against the drug company, included the words “neutralise”, “neutralised” or “discredit” against some of the doctors’ names.
It is also alleged the company used intimidation tactics against critical researchers, including dropping hints it would stop funding to institutions and claims it interfered with academic appointments.
“We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live,” a Merck employee wrote, according to an email excerpt read to the court by Julian Burnside QC, acting for the plaintiff.
Merck & Co and its Australian subsidiary, Merck, Sharpe and Dohme, are being sued for compensation by more than 1000 Australians, who claim they suffered heart attacks or strokes as a result of Vioxx.
The Australian, 1/4/9
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25272600-2702,00.html