Justice Delayed is Justice Denied? - Another Neurontin Settlement by Pfizer 20 Years After the Alleged Events
We have argued repeatedly against the strategy used by US government authorities to address allegations of bad behavior in health care (and elsewhere) by pursuing monetary settlements against the companies involved, rather than trying to impose penalties on the people who may have done wrong. There are many apparent things wrong with this approach (which we will rant about again below), but one aspect that deserves more attention is its slowness.The Latest Pfizer Settlement For example, Bloomberg reported in early June about yet another settlement by Pfizer of allegations about the marketing of the drug Neurontin (ga...
Source: Health Care Renewal - June 16, 2014 Category: Health Management Tags: kickbacks legal settlements Neurontin Pfizer Source Type: blogs
The Pervasiveness of Health Care Corruption as Shown by Another Roundup of Legal Settlements
Legal settlements are one way to document unethical and even corrupt behavior by large health care organizations, even if they may not deter bad behavior in the future. It is time for another roundup of settlements by large pharmaceutical and device companies, presented in alphabetical orderAbbott LaboratoriesThis one goes back to late December, 2013. As described in the Chattanoogan (from Tennessee):Abbott Laboratories, a global healthcare company, has agreed to pay $5.475 million to settle alleged violations of the False Claims Act, and other federal laws and regulations in connection with the operation of ...
Source: Health Care Renewal - April 30, 2014 Category: Health Management Tags: Abbott antitrust Baxter Endo Health Solutions fraud Hospira kickbacks legal settlements Neurontin Pfizer restraint of competition RICO Source Type: blogs
Pain Medicine News - Fibromyalgia Now Widely Recognized as Requiring Multimodal Approach
Israeli fibromyalgia guidelines published online in November 2013 and Canadian guidelines published in May 2013 follow in the solid footsteps of the 2010 American College of Rheumatology preliminary diagnostic criteria for fibromyalgia. The Canadian and Israeli documents eschew an extensive physical examination and a tender-point count, focus on the importance of nonpharmacologic treatments and recognize fibromyalgia as neither a distinct rheumatic nor mental disorder. German guidelines cut from similar cloth were published in 2008."All three guidelines focus on a multimodal approach; and we emphasize the primacy of physic...
Source: Psychology of Pain - March 13, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Itching: More Than Skin-Deep - NYTimes.com
The experiment was not for the squirmish. Volunteers were made to itch like crazy on one arm, but not allowed to scratch. Then they were whisked into an M.R.I. scanner to see what parts of their brains lit up when they itched, when researchers scratched them and when they were finally allowed to scratch themselves.
The scientific question was this: Why does it feel so good to scratch an itch?
"It's quite intriguing to see how many brain centers are activated," said Dr. Gil Yosipovitch, chairman of dermatology at the Temple University School of Medicine and director of the Temple Center for Itch (he conducte...
Source: Psychology of Pain - February 18, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Kelly’s Cervical Cancer Journey
Below are experts from Kelly, author and creator of the blog My Cervical Cancer Journey. In her blog, she details her fight with cervical cancer from 2010 to the present.
My name is Kelly and I was diagnosed with cervical cancer stage 2 in May 2010. I had no idea what I was in for! You hear the word cancer and you have two choices: curl up in a ball or you fight. I am not a doctor but want to share my story from the patient point of view to help others.
I was 41 years old at the time of the diagnoses. I am a single mother of triplets. I was scared. My symptoms were constant bleeding. During the same tim...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - January 31, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Cancer Chronic Conditions Women's Health Source Type: blogs
Pain Medicine News - Neuropathic Pain Trial Results Often Not Publicly Available, Survey Shows
Toronto—One-third of results from registered clinical trials of neuropathic pain treatments are not readily available, according to an extensive survey of neuropathic pain literature.According to Michael Rowbotham, MD, scientific director of the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute in San Francisco, the unavailability of such a swath of trial results, compounded with selective publication bias, carry significant ethical, research and clinical implications."One problem is that the aggregating of these data tends to inflate treatment effect sizes," said Dr. Rowbotham. "If you overestimate the effect size, y...
Source: Psychology of Pain - January 26, 2014 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Policy and Medicine: Current Healthcare Landscape and Predictions for 2014
We reported in November that the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) agreed to amend the ABPI Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry to require increased disclosure of payments within the healthcare community. The ABPI released a statement highlighting the importance of greater transparency in the relationships between the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare professionals. It is likely that other European countries will be looking more closely at how they regulate relationships between the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare professionals.
RICO… RICO…RICO
In mid-December, the U...
Source: Policy and Medicine - December 31, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Merry Christmas Big Pharma, from PharmaGossip and Sid Wolfe
Escalating criminal and civil violations: pharma has corporate integrity? Not reallySidney M Wolfe looks at the system that should, but does not, deter drug companies from breaking the lawAre criminal and civil penalties of hundreds of millions of dollars an important deterrent to law breaking by international drug companies?Further, would external monitoring in the form of US government mandated corporate integrity agreements (CIA)1 to prevent recurrences of such illegal activities, lasting five years after being signed, be an additional deterrent? Yes in both cases, but only if the size of the penalties outweig...
Source: PharmaGossip - December 24, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs
When Waking Up Becomes the Nightmare: Hypnopompic Hallucinatory Pain
In conclusion, to our knowledge this is the first report of a NREM parasomnia associated with painful paroxysms, for which we postulate the following underlying pathophysiological mechanism: an internal or external stimulus triggers arousal, facilitating the activation of innate motor pattern generators in the brainstem and activating somatosensory cortical areas to produce hypnopompic hallucinatory pain.So instead of the more typical visual hallucinations, the patient experiences pain hallucinations that originate.... where?? It seems to me that the sleep EEG could be analyzed more thoroughly, beyond merely ruling out sei...
Source: The Neurocritic - December 21, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Continuing Medical Education (CME): Flawed JAMA Report Blurs Line Between “Medical Communication Companies” and Accredited “Medical Education Companies”
Today, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a brief report (Medical Communication Companies and Industry Grants) as well as an editorial in order to explore "the financial relationships between MCCs and drug device companies." The authors use a mixture of outdated figures, hyperbole, and blatant untruths to piece together their articles, which, according to CME Coalition Senior Advisor, Andrew Rosenberg, contain "so many inaccuracies and examples of unfounded innuendo" that "it is a challenge to enumerate them all."
JAMA has decided not to make the report available to the public, but we have c...
Source: Policy and Medicine - December 18, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
BLOGSCAN - US Supreme Court Turns Down Pfizer Appeal of RICO Conviction
Pfizer Inc, which boasts of being the world's largest research based pharmaceutical company, also seems to be one of the world's largest examples of health care corporations that have withstood an amazing number of settlements, fines, and at times convictions for misbehavior without major apologies, significant changes in leadership or corporate culture, or bankruptcy. (Look here for a list of the cases, and here for all we have written about Pfizer). Pfizer, amazingly, has the malodorous distinction of having been convicted by a US jury as a RICO - a racketeering influenced corrupt organization in 2010 (l...
Source: Health Care Renewal - December 13, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Tags: crime deception impunity Neurontin Pfizer RICO Source Type: blogs
CME Coalition Questions Pew Taskforce on COI Recommendations as “Irresponsible” and Potentially Dangerous to America’s Health
This week, the Pew Charitable Trust Prescription Project released a small task force report for academic medical centers which included recommendations around continuing medical education (CME) that, if followed, could eliminate one out of every three dollars that are invested in accredited medical instruction for America's doctors today. On the basis of three studies, from 1988, 1992, and 2001, the Pew recommendations merely restate their longstanding condemnation of accredited CME: that any financial support from commercial interests—no matter how stringent the restrictions on its use—renders the curriculum irrevocab...
Source: Policy and Medicine - December 13, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Supreme Court Rejects Pfizer In Neurontin Off-Label Marketing
In a setback to Pfizer, the US Supreme Court has left intact a $142 million award to Kaiser Foundation Health plan for marketing the Neurontin epilepsy drug for unapproved uses (back story). The court also allowed two other lawsuits – one brought by Aetna, the large insurer, and a class action that was filed on behalf of union health plans and other insurers – to proceed (see this).
The decision opens Pfizer to potentially still more payouts, especially if additional lawsuits are filed by other insurers or health plans that make similar claims. The lawsuits charged that Pfizer engaged in racketeering and induced physic...
Source: Pharmalot - December 10, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: esilverman Source Type: blogs
Weekly Roundup – November 13, 2013
Below are some of the past week’s interesting health care related news stories. Happy Hump Day!
In honor of November being National Caregivers Month AARP and the Advertising Council launched a new advertising and social media campaign. The campaign illustrates the many roles caregivers play and to thank them for this assistance. Check out the New York Times article for more details on the campaign.
NPR’s Shots Blog covered a story about doctors who are studying if gabapentin, a generic drug that’s commonly used to treat epilepsy and fibromyalgia can be used to fight alcoholism.
USAToday ran an article about a s...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - November 13, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Roundup health Human papillomavirus new york times NPR USA Today Washington Post Source Type: blogs
Exercise Calms You Down
When we think of exercise, what
comes to mind is usually its benefits to body organs such as the circulatory
system. But, did you know that exercise is just what the doctor ordered when it
comes to reducing anxiety? It’s true. Next time you’re upset and have the urge
to eat, move your body instead. Here’s why.
Scientists have long known that
exercise combats anxiety, but not exactly how that process works—until now.
According to “How exercise calms the brain” (THE WEEK, 7/26/13), “physical
activity creates excitable new neurons in the hippocampus, a part of the brain
that regulates emotion, think...
Source: Normal Eating - November 8, 2013 Category: Eating Disorders Authors: eatnormalnow Source Type: blogs
