Is the distrust of the pharmaceutical industry warranted??

steddyeddy

There seems to be a lot of distrust placed in the pharmaceutical industry or "big pharma" in recent years. Are these concerns warranted or is it a general distrust of science at play? An article from the Financial Times indicated the level of distrust in the industry.

My views are that the pharm companies are a business like any other but certain times intervention from pure research bodies is needed to regulate the industry and greater government investment is required to make the industry serve the public.

Patients’ groups distrust ‘big pharma’

By Andrew Jack in London

The majority of patients’ organisations consider pharmaceutical companies untrustworthy, according to a survey conducted by a UK-based consultancy to be released on Friday.
PatientView, which monitors the views of patient groups around the world, says that from 665 organisations assessed, only 37 per cent considered the industry “trustworthy” in 2008, and less than a quarter had noted any improvement since then.

Detailed rankings compiled from patient groups with a close knowledge of the drug company’s products showed many continental European groups rated highly, while US and UK businesses were less well judged.
Novartis of Switzerland performed best, and Baxter of the US worst.
The ratings will add to the gloom in the drug sector, which is facing concerns over patient access to treatments as a result of rising unemployment in the recession and cutbacks in medical care.
In spite of efforts by the industry in recent months to provide more information on clinical trials, and funding to doctors and patient groups, 55 per cent of the patient groups also said they did not believe there had been any real increase in transparency over the past year.
The negative views are significant given that patients are generally thought to have a positive attitude to the industry as they are benefiting from life-saving products.
However, Alexandra Wyke, head of PatientView, said many patients’ groups – notably those in the US – had expressed concerns about rising drug prices and inadequate access programmes for those on low incomes.
“There is a feeling that patient assistance programmes [to provide free drugs] have been cut back, pricing has been ratcheted up,” she said.
Pharmaceutical trustworthiness ranking in 2009* Rank Company Change in 2008 rank 1 Novartis (Switzerland) Up 3 2 Sanofi-Aventis (France) ** 3 Bayer (Germany) ** 3 Roche/Genentech (Switzerland) Up 5 5 Abbott Laboratories (US) Up 3 6 AstraZeneca (UK) - 6 Pfizer/Wyeth (US) Down 4 8 Johnson & Johnson (US) Down 7 9 Bristol-Myers Squibb (US) Down 1 9 GlaxoSmithKline (UK) Down 6 11 Eli Lilly (US) Down 5 * Patient groups’ opinions on whether companies had improved their levels of trustworthiness ** Not included in last year’s survey Source: Patientview A frequent frustration of patient groups was that they were given insufficient information on the results of clinical trials of new drugs and about early-stage trials in which they could participate in order to gain access to experimental life-saving treatments.
Ms Wyke said Novartis had established a strong reputation for developing tight links with patient groups, notably for its leukaemia drug Glivec, and Sanofi-Aventis had recently boosted efforts to establish better contact with patient groups.
Wim Leereveld, head of the Access to Medicines Index, which is releasing an alternative ranking system in June, warned that patients’ views should not be taken in isolation.
“Sometimes the perceptions are wrong,” he said, stressing the broader nature of his index. “I think the sector is relatively transparent compared with other industries.”
GlaxoSmithKline, which experienced a sharp drop in its trustworthiness rating, said: “We believe it is imperative to earn the trust of society, not just by meeting expectations but by exceeding them.
“The patient is central to all that we do and we are determined to be more flexible and responsive to their needs.

Sinister Pigeon

One word.

Thalidomide.

Wishiwasa Littlebitaller

Yes and yes.

steddyeddy

Sinister Pigeon wrote: »

One word.

Thalidomide.

Several words. Thalidomide was the result of stereo-chemical differences between racemate forms of the drug. The effects of stereochemistry on binding equilibrium between drugs and receptor were wildly underestimated at the time. This was a general ignorance in the part of the science of the time not a conspiracy by the pharm companies.

syklops

The elephant man

steddyeddy

By the way in a lot of cases Thalidomide shouldn't have been prescribed at all.

There are those who would have you believe that pharma companies are sitting on cures to fatal illnesses, but because there is fúck all profit to be made from curing and megabucks to be made in treating, these cures will never see the light of day.

Scary if true, unfortunately there's no way for your average Boards poster to find out for sure.

I personally don't fully trust them, but also don't take for granted the wonders of modern medicine.

_Redzer_

Nope.

But then again these are the same kinds of people who are distrustful of vaccines and GMOs -people who are against them based on misinformation, ignorance and the media's constant fearmongering.

Sinister Pigeon

Sinister Pigeon wrote: »

One word.

Thalidomide.

Thalidomide is used quite a lot in oncology. Very useful medication actually.

Duggy747

It can have a certain level of distrust and skepticism like every other industry, but it's the easy use of the term "Big Pharma" to peddle conspiracy theories and alternative medicine that can be irritating to see.

Sinister Pigeon

Deleted User wrote: »

Thalidomide is used quite a lot in oncology. Very useful medication actually.

Just not for morning sickness though..........

steddyeddy

stankratz wrote: »

There are those who would have you believe that pharma companies are sitting on cures to fatal illnesses, but because there is fúck all profit to be made from curing and megabucks to be made in treating, these cures will never see the light of day.

Scary if true, unfortunately there's no way for your average Boards poster to find out for sure.

I personally don't fully trust them, but also don't take for granted the wonders of modern medicine.

Well they're not sitting on the cures but they certainly could cure a lot more diseases than they can now EG cystic fibrosis. The problem is millions goes into research of each and every drug and in order for that to be profitable a lot of people have to buy that drug. Less prevalent illnesses don't warrant these costs in their eyes. This is inherently capitalist and not a deliberate conspiracy of the pharm companies. This requires government intervention to solve.

_Redzer_

stankratz wrote: »

There are those who would have you believe that pharma companies are sitting on cures to fatal illnesses, but because there is fúck all profit to be made from curing and megabucks to be made in treating, these cures will never see the light of day.

Scary if true, unfortunately there's no way for your average Boards poster to find out for sure.

I personally don't fully trust them, but also don't take for granted the wonders of modern medicine.

It's not true. Do you know how many universities alone are involved in research across the globe? There's no way big pharmaceutical companies can hide cures, there's just far too many researchers and scientists working behind the scenes all over the worlds, from universities to small research companies -which collectively dwarf big pharmaceuticals.

In reality, big pharmaceuticals can't really do much to stop research even if they tried. They're nowhere near powerful enough. It's a misconception people have brought about by the media painting them as far more influential than they are in reality.

steddyeddy

Deleted User wrote: »

Thalidomide is used quite a lot in oncology. Very useful medication actually.

Yes indeed provided the hydrogen atom is in the right place this time

bleg

steddyeddy wrote: »

Well they're not sitting on the cures but they certainly could cure a lot more diseases than they can now EG cystic fibrosis. The problem is millions goes into research of each and every drug and in order for that to be profitable a lot of people have to buy that drug. Less prevalent illnesses don't warrant these costs in their eyes. This is inherently capitalist and not a deliberate conspiracy of the pharm companies. This requires government intervention to solve.

Like some sort of orphan disease programme?

http://www.fda.gov/regulatoryinformation/legislation/federalfooddrugandcosmeticactfdcact/significantamendmentstothefdcact/orphandrugact/default.htm

steddyeddy

bleg wrote: »

Like some sort of orphan disease programme?

http://www.fda.gov/regulatoryinformation/legislation/federalfooddrugandcosmeticactfdcact/significantamendmentstothefdcact/orphandrugact/default.htm

Yes that's the one. The next thing the government will need to fund is antibiotic research. It's no longer profitable.

donegal__road

Turmeric


Big pharma = slow expensive death

steddyeddy

donegal__road wrote: »

Turmeric


Big pharma = slow expensive death

The active ingredient, curcumin is being investigated by several pharmaceutical companies as a anti cancer drug.

steddyeddy

steddyeddy wrote: »

Well they're not sitting on the cures but they certainly could cure a lot more diseases than they can now EG cystic fibrosis. The problem is millions goes into research of each and every drug and in order for that to be profitable a lot of people have to buy that drug. Less prevalent illnesses don't warrant these costs in their eyes. This is inherently capitalist and not a deliberate conspiracy of the pharm companies. This requires government intervention to solve.

The price of some high-end meds is ridiculous on the surface, but as you say there is a serious amount of money put into the research. That is why I can't condemn a pharma company for charging $150,000 for a course of drugs that would make a person's life so much better. Government intervention/subsidisation should be looked into.

_Redzer_ wrote: »

It's not true. Do you know how many universities alone are involved in research across the globe? There's no way big pharmaceutical companies can hide cures, there's just far too many researchers and scientists working behind the scenes all over the worlds, from universities to small research companies -which collectively dwarf big pharmaceuticals.

In reality, big pharmaceuticals can't really do much to stop research even if they tried. They're nowhere near powerful enough. It's a misconception people have brought about by the media painting them as far more influential than they are in reality.

I overlooked the universities there indeed Redzer, would be very difficult to buy up all these 'cures' and keep them buried and their creators silent.

Going back to the trust thing, this made my stomach turn when I first read it. These are the kind of people we are dealing with i.e. profit at all costs...

Recently unearthed documents show that the drug company Bayer sold millions of dollars worth of an injectable blood-clotting medicine -- Factor VIII concentrate, intended for hemophiliacs -- to Asian, Latin American, and some European countries in the mid-1980s, although they knew that it was tainted with AIDS.

Full article...

gctest50

steddyeddy wrote: »

By the way in a lot of cases Thalidomide shouldn't have been prescribed at all.

If they didn't know at the time , they didn't know.

Lying about it though is a bit weak -

The suits, consolidated in U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania, allege that Grunenthal GMBH, the German drug company who invented thalidomide, in cooperation with American companies Smith, Kline and French, now GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK), and Merrell Richardson, now Sanofi-Aventis (NYSE: SNY), hid evidence of thalidomide distribution in the United States in the late 1950s, lying to Congress and creating a false historical narrative that the drug was blocked by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). http://www.thalidomideireland.com/recentnews.htm

steddyeddy

gctest50 wrote: »

If they didn't know at the time , they didn't know.

Lying about it though is a bit weak -

Well no one knew about it at the time. Now both stereoisomers of the drug are tested. Yes in all capitalist controlled ventures eg health, education and housing government intervention and controls are needed.

Canis Lupus

Can't say I'd trust them fully. I feel where massive profits are to be made then it's possible someone gets screwed somewhere along the line.

Karl Stein

People don't trust the pharmaceutical industry? Gosh..

'journalists and food supplement pill peddlers and naturopaths can distort evidence for their own purposes [...] the pharmaceutical industry uses exactly the same kinds of tricks and devices, but slightly more sophisticated versions of them, in order to distort the evidence that they give to doctors and patients [...] negative data goes missing in action; it's withheld from doctors and patients [...] 76 percent of all of the trials that were done on [reboxetine] were withheld from doctors and patients [...] around half of all of the trial data on antidepressants has been withheld.

Ben Goldacre

Alas the genuine sceptics will be lumped in with the conspiracy theorists and it'll be business as usual.

Sinister Pigeon

What about the Bopal disaster?

Wishiwasa Littlebitaller

How anyone could blindly trust pharmaceutical companies is beyond me.

Pfizer (Sept 2009)
Pfizer was fined $2.3 billion, then the largest health care fraud settlement and the largest criminal fine ever imposed in the United States. Pfizer pled guilty to misbranding the painkiller Bextra with "the intent to defraud or mislead", promoting the drug to treat acute pain at dosages the FDA had previously deemed dangerously high. Bextra was pulled from the market in 2005 due to safety concerns. The government alleged that Pfizer also promoted three other drugs illegally: the antipsychotic Geodon, an antibiotic Zyvox, and the antiepileptic drug Lyrica.


Merck (Nov 2011)
Merck agreed to pay a fine of $950 million related to the illegal promotion of the painkiller Vioxx, which was withdrawn from the market in 2004 after studies found the drug increased the risk of heart attacks. The company pled guilty to having promoted Vioxx as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis before it had been approved for that use. The settlement also resolved allegations that Merck made false or misleading statements about the drug's heart safety to increase sales.


GlaxoSmithKline (July 2012)
GlaxoSmithKline agreed to pay a fine of $3 billion to resolve civil and criminal liabilities regarding its promotion of drugs, as well as its failure to report safety data. This is the largest health care fraud settlement in the United States to date. The company pled guilty to misbranding the drug Paxil for treating depression in patients under 18, even though the drug had never been approved for that age group. GlaxoSmithKline also pled guilty to failing to disclose safety information about the diabetes drug Avandia to the FDA.


Sanofi-Aventis (Dec 2012)
Sanofi-Aventis agreed to pay $109 million to resolve allegations that the company gave doctors free units of Hyalgan (an injection to relieve knee pain) to encourage those doctors to buy their product. Sanofi lowered the effective price by promising these free samples to doctors, but at the same time got inflated prices from government programs by submitting false price reports, alleged the United States. Medicare and other government health care programs "paid millions of dollars in kickback-tainted claims for Hyalgan," according to the DOJ announcement.


Johnson & Johnson (Nov 2013)
Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay a $2.2 billion fine to resolve criminal and civil allegations relating to the prescription drugs Risperdal, Invega and Natrecor. The government alleged that J&J promoted these drugs for uses not approved as safe and effective by the FDA, targeted elderly dementia patients in nursing homes, and paid kickbacks to physicians and to the nation’s largest long-term care pharmacy provider, Omnicare Inc. As part of the agreement, Johnson & Johnson admitted that it promoted Risperdal for treatment of psychotic symptoms in non-schizophrenic patients, although the drug was approved only to treat schizophrenia.


Eli Lilly (Jan 2009)
Eli Lilly was fined $1.42 billion to resolve a government investigation into the off-label promotion of the antipsychotic Zyprexa. Zyprexa had been approved for the treatment of certain psychotic disorders, but Lilly admitted to promoting the drug in elderly populations to treat dementia. The government also alleged that Lilly targeted primary care physicians to promote Zyprexa for unapproved uses and “trained its sales force to disregard the law.”


AstraZeneca (April 2010)
AstraZeneca was fined $520 million to resolve allegations that it illegally promoted the antipsychotic drug Seroquel. The drug was approved for treating schizophrenia and later for bipolar mania, but the government alleged that AstraZeneca promoted Seroquel for a variety of unapproved uses, such as aggression, sleeplessness, anxiety, and depression. AstraZeneca denied the charges but agreed to pay the fine to end the investigation.


Abbott (May 2012)
Abbott was fined $1.5 billion in connection to the illegal promotion of the antipsychotic drug Depakote. Abbott admitted to having trained a special sales force to target nursing homes, marketing the drug for the control of aggression and agitation in elderly dementia patients. Depakote had never been approved for that purpose, and Abbott lacked evidence that the drug was safe or effective for those uses. The company also admitted to marketing Depakote to treat schizophrenia, even though no study had found it effective for that purpose.


Boehringer Ingelheim (Oct 2012)
Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc agreed to pay $95 million to resolve allegations that the company promoted several drugs for non- medically accepted uses. These drugs included the stroke-prevention drug Aggrenox, the lung disease drugs Atrovent and Combivent, and Micardis, a drug to treat high blood pressure. The FDA alleged that Boehringer improperly marketed the drugs and "caused false claims to be submitted to government health care programs."


Amgen (Dec 2012)
Amgen agreed to pay a $762 million fine to resolve criminal and civil charges that the company illegally introduced and promoted several drugs including Aranesp, a drug to treat anemia. Amgen pleaded guilty to illegally selling Aranesp to be used at doses that the FDA had explicitly rejected, and for an off-label treatment that had never been FDA-approved.


Endo (Feb 2014)
Endo Health Solutions Inc. and its subsidiary Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc. agreed to pay $192.7 million to resolve criminal and civil liability arising from Endo’s marketing of the prescription drug Lidoderm. As part of the agreement, Endo admitted that it intended that Lidoderm be used for unapproved indications and that it promoted Lidoderm to healthcare providers this way

Bongalongherb

The answer to your question is yes

Britain’s Serious Fraud Office has opened a criminal investigation into the commercial practices of US drug giant GlaxoSmithKline and its subsidiaries.

GlaxoSmithKline have showed time and time again that their ethics regarding their pharmaceutical toxic drugs are unethical and dangerous... hence, why they have always been, and still are under criminal investigation.

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/health-pharma/glaxosmithkline-faces-criminal-investigation-from-britain-s-sfo-1.1811642

_Redzer_

stankratz wrote: »

The price of some high-end meds is ridiculous on the surface, but as you say there is a serious amount of money put into the research. That is why I can't condemn a pharma company for charging $150,000 for a course of drugs that would make a person's life so much better. Government intervention/subsidisation should be looked into.



I overlooked the universities there indeed Redzer, would be very difficult to buy up all these 'cures' and keep them buried and their creators silent.

Going back to the trust thing, this made my stomach turn when I first read it. These are the kind of people we are dealing with i.e. profit at all costs...

Regulatory methods and practises have improved immensely since then. Something like this would not happen again and wouldn't make it past some of its first testing phases, let alone onto the market.

There will always be companies consumed with the monetary angle of it, but many more are built of researchers who want to do well. People don't go into cancer research for the money, they go in with an ambition to contribute to fighting it.

Sure, the outcome is ridiculously expensive, but billions and billions get poured into products that 90% of the time do not work out.

I'm hoping to get into pharmacogenomics, and I'm doing it for good reasons, as well as it being a big interest of mine, but I'm not going to do it for free either. I couldn't ask you to do your job for nothing. So although my intentions are good, and I'd value the health of patients above financial gain, this all adds to the end cost of the drugs as well.

Thankfully there are new methods being brought in that could cut down on R&D costs hugely, like humanised mice. But government subsidies would go a long way in bringing down the cost of treatment, too.

Sinister Pigeon

Anybody remember the case of the Tipp farmer that had to sue Merck Sharp and Dohme and won?

Karl Stein

stankratz wrote: »

Government intervention ... should be looked into

Like offering patent monopolies so that pharmaceutical companies can charge whatever the fuck they like?

Before the crying TINA's* arrive there are alternatives to the current patent system that have the chance of producing better outcomes at a lower cost to society.


*There Is No Alternative

gctest50

I've seen a tiny touch of it firsthand

- one type of insulin seems a bit dodgy as far as safety goes,

was told basically "take that at night-time"
me - " instructions say take it any time"
- " no no take it at night time"

answer is obvious enough - hit a blood vessel with it - can kill you - nearly got me a couple of times

steddyeddy

_Redzer_ wrote: »

Regulatory methods and practises have improved immensely since then. Something like this would not happen again and wouldn't make it passed some of its first testing phases, let alone onto the market.

There will always be companies consumed with the monetary angle of it, but many more are built of researchers who want to do well. People don't go into cancer research for the money, they go in with an ambition to contribute to fighting it.

Sure the out come is ridiculously expensive, but billions and billions get poured into products that 90% if the time do not work out.

I'm hoping to get into pharmacogenomics, and I'm doing it for good reasons, as well as it being a big interest of mine, but I'm not going to do it for free either. I couldn't ask you to do your job for nothing. So although my intentions are good, and I'd value the health of patients above financial gain, this all adds to the end cost of the drugs as well.

Thankfully there are new methods being brought in that could cut down on R&D costs hugely, like humanised mice. But government subsidies would go a long way in bringing down the cost of treatment, too.

I'm channelling myself into protein therapeutics and I do it for good reasons but I also want to make a living. I will not money above patient's lives either.

I highlighted that word because that it going to make a huge difference to patient's well being in the future. CYP450 gene variants hold the key to optimising drug regimes for patients.

donegal__road

steddyeddy wrote: »

The active ingredient, curcumin is being investigated by several pharmaceutical companies as a anti cancer drug.

yes, curcumin kills cancer cells, that has been established. For it to be effective it has to be dissolved with fat, such as olive oil, and combined with black pepper which makes it stay in the system for up to 20 times longer than normal. There is a ton of information online detailing the health benefits of curcumin.

It has been recently found to halt the progression of Alzheimers. It also is a powerful anti inflammatory.. helps ease arthritis pain etc.

The FDA has recently tried to ban the sale and distribution of Turmeric in the USA.

Miprocin

Duggy747 wrote: »

It can have a certain level of distrust and skepticism like every other industry, but it's the easy use of the term "Big Pharma" to peddle conspiracy theories and alternative medicine that can be irritating to see.

Yes. It is a business whose job it is to maximise profit so some distrust would seem warranted.

steddyeddy

Bongalongherb wrote: »

The answer to your question is yes

Britain’s Serious Fraud Office has opened a criminal investigation into the commercial practices of US drug giant GlaxoSmithKline and its subsidiaries.

GlaxoSmithKline have showed time and time again that their ethics regarding their pharmaceutical toxic drugs are unethical and dangerous... hence, why they have always been, and still are under criminal investigation.

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/health-pharma/glaxosmithkline-faces-criminal-investigation-from-britain-s-sfo-1.1811642

Fraud has been seen in every industry bar none. More regulations are needed I agree. My one take away point is that the people who design these drugs (scientists) are generally to be trusted.

steddyeddy

Miprocin wrote: »

Yes. It is a business whose job it is to maximise profit so some distrust would seem warranted.

Do you distrust the rental, education or other sectors whose job it is to maximise profits.

gctest50

steddyeddy wrote: »

I'm channelling myself into protein therapeutics and I do it for good reasons but I also want to make a living. I will not money above patient's lives either.

I highlighted that word because that it going to make a huge difference to patient's well being in the future. CYP450 gene variants hold the key to optimising drug regimes for patients.

But if you are told to keep quiet about something that would potentially cost a very significant amount to the company, you will or something will happen you - you'd be naive to think that doesn't go on.

kowloon

Karl Stein wrote: »

People don't trust the pharmaceutical industry? Gosh..

Bad Science was a great book, have Bad Pharma waiting on the shelf. Ben Goldacre seems to be genuinely interested in cutting the BS from what I've read. Both Big Pharma and Quackery.

YFlyer

donegal__road wrote: »

yes, curcumin kills cancer cells, that has been established. For it to be effective it has to be dissolved with fat, such as olive oil, and combined with black pepper which makes it stay in the system for up to 20 times longer than normal. There is a ton of information online detailing the health benefits of curcumin.

It has been recently found to halt the progression of Alzheimers. It also is a powerful anti inflammatory.. helps ease arthritis pain etc.

The FDA has recently tried to ban the sale and distribution of Turmeric in the USA.

Ayurveda cooking is
wonderful

I think two gentlemen tried to patent turmeric. It was rightfully rejected.

steddyeddy

gctest50 wrote: »

But if you are told to keep quiet about something that would potentially cost a very significant amount to the company, you will or something will happen you - you'd be naive to think that doesn't go on.

That would very much depend on the whistleblower protections laws of the country.

Turtwig

In short, no.

In reality, it's far more complicated than that. I wouldn't take much notice of the legal settlements made. This is business and law after all. If I sue someone in Ireland for defamations it's easier for them to make a settlement that endure the court trial. The more scientific the query the less chance a jury or judge has a hope in hell of understanding it. So companies just have funds set aside for big payouts. It's far more cost effective.

So why the no? They put more into marketing than they do into research. Access to clinical trials is seen as private property and damaging to their competitiveness. Recently a few companies have stepped back on this stance and are trying to make the trials data more open. Their problem though is unless others follow suit, they will be at a disadvantage. Open data, means it's far easier for lawsuits. And in the US, some drug laws suits, are a particular kind of stupid. But companies have to made huge payouts. As a results drug side effects are either one of two of categories:

grossly understated - the effects of a drug in a particular area are completely down played.
grossly overstated. - every fcking side effect from here to the moon is listed.

And drug efficacy is the similar.

The industry is a vital cog in a human being health and some of the distrust show towards them is just ideological, anti-establishment, big whatever. (Pity that last one isn't applied to the homeopathic industry). That isn't to say they're always doing stuff for humanity's benefit. Like everything, there's good and bad pharma.

The Pheasant2

I think my distrust is rooted in the fact that they prefer to treat illness (long term pay off) rather than cure it (once off paymemt).

I understand they are a business but still...undecided on whether capitalism and healthcare can ethically go hand in hand.

gctest50

steddyeddy wrote: »

That would very much depend on the whistleblower protections laws of the country.

It might more depend on how many roads are being built nearby

Bongalongherb

steddyeddy wrote: »

Fraud has been seen in every industry bar none. More regulations are needed I agree. My one take away point is that the people who design these drugs (scientists) are generally to be trusted.

But if the scientists have been bought by glaxosmithkline, as to give their signature of non-disclosure of which happened many a time, then these scientists can't say anything until their work-state in this business has ended.

If such a pharmaceutical scientist did see wrong-doings within this organisation and spoke out... they would not only lose their job, but they would be sued for breach of contract. This is old, and has happened in the past with the likes of this GlaxoSmithKline scenario.

Bongalongherb

@ Turtwig

In reality, it's far more complicated than that. I wouldn't take much notice of the legal settlements made. This is business and law after all. If I sue someone in Ireland for defamations it's easier for them to make a settlement that endure the court trial. The more scientific the query the less chance a jury or judge has a hope in hell of understanding it. So companies just have funds set aside for big payouts. It's far more cost effective.

Yes, I agree with this. It's the truth indeed.

Turtwig

The Pheasant2 wrote: »

I think my distrust is rooted in the fact that they prefer to treat illness (long term pay off) rather than cure it (once off paymemt).

I understand they are a business but still...undecided on whether capitalism and healthcare can ethically go hand in hand.

If we look at cardiac medicine. Some drugs become more dangerous over time. The evidence for beta blockers now suggests they kill more people than they save. Yet fifty years ago beta blockers were life savers. Now, it would be easy to conclude from this that Big Pharma covered up the efficacy of the drugs. In reality, though they just made far better drugs for various other cardiac functions and beta blockers don't have the same effect they used to. There's better drugs out there.

The pharma industry is one where compared to most other industries, things are constantly changing and they have to keep re-evolving at very fast pace. They do prefer maintenance medication but they can't rely on it because this generations set of problems will be very different to the next's. The reason being is that very often one drug for one condition also leads to increased understanding somewhere else. Suppose, for example, tomorrow a company made a drug that caused MS in 10% of its patients. Researchers would be all over it like a flash. They'd have a mechanism for understanding why the condition occurs in the first place - and then where does that leave MS Disease Modification Drugs market? Or suppose a research in Uni found a simplistic mechanism for the condition. In short, there's a likelihood that their drug products lifespan will be rather short, and they know this.

partyatmygaff

Pharmaceutical companies aren't inherently untrustworthy. Certainly no more than any other industry.

Just remember that behind every drug that reaches clinical trials (let alone those that reach the market), thousands of other drug candidates had been tested and failed in its wake. By the time the general public hears of a new drug, the company developing the drug has already invested hundreds of millions in to its development without a single cent in sales.

In the pharmaceutical industry, there are far more failures than successes, the costs of development are astronomical and with the way pharmaceutical patents work, there's scarcely any time at all to make a return on investment.

Understandably, the further a drug has gotten through the pipeline, the less willing said company will be to drop it. Look at Vioxx for example. The thought at the time that drug was developed was that COX-2 selective inhibitors would have all the anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects of aspirin/NSAIDs without any of the gastrointestinal side effects. Only after hundreds of thousands of people had taken the drug and after it became one of the most widely prescribed drugs in the world did it become obvious that something else was happening and that Vioxx was causing heart attacks and vascular events. Just before the drug came to market, Merck knew the drug had some cardiovascular risk and that was confirmed afterwards from the post-marketing surveillance. They didn't lie outright but they downplayed the risks to the FDA. That then fed down to physicians and pharmacists who knew no better.

The moral of the story is that "big pharma" are under a lot of pressure to make a profit and need to be tightly regulated. It's not an exciting world of conspiracies and there are no secret cures being "bought up" and swept under the carpet (as if that's even possible). Like any business, profit is their number one concern and it's up to regulatory bodies to keep them in check.

Trusting a big business driven by profit is never a great idea but given all the regulatory rigmarole that goes in to bringing a drug to market, there really is no good reason to completely distrust "big pharma" as some people do. There are a lot of others who do all the distrusting for you so you don't have to.

Karl Stein

Karl Stein wrote: »

Like offering patent monopolies so that pharmaceutical companies can charge whatever the fuck they like?

Karl, you seemed to pick and choose what parts of my quote to leave in to suit your response. Where did I at all mention anything about patent monopolies?

I merely recognise the huge financial and time investment that goes into creating these drugs, just like I recognise a patient's right to have the best treatment available.

The pharmas have to get a return on this investment and that is after recouping the billions already invested in R+D. Unfortunately they aren't doing it for the good of their (and other people's) health. This is where government intervention/subsidisation comes in, but you chose to leave out the 'subsidisation' part of my comment.

_Redzer_

The Pheasant2 wrote: »

I think my distrust is rooted in the fact that they prefer to treat illness (long term pay off) rather than cure it (once off paymemt).

I understand they are a business but still...undecided on whether capitalism and healthcare can ethically go hand in hand.

As someone who hopes to enter the industry at some point, this is an annoying misconception.

There is research being done all over the world to better the understanding of diseases and discover cures. A few big pharma companies can't halt that, it's not in their control or even remotely feasible for them to do so.

Also, many pharma companies spend years and years and multiple billions of dollars to get a good a solid and effective treatment, and continue to refine and refine and refine it once they get a foothold.
You're under the illusion that once they find a treatment that they just sit still milk it. It's untrue. They keep making it cheaper to cover a larger market and more effective, among other things.

Take insulin and diabetes for example. Many companies specialise in producing insulin for diabetes alone.

Everyone knows diabetes is caused by the pancreas not producing sufficient insulin -but that's a structural problem with the pancreas.
To cure diabetes would require branching out into stem cells to repair the damaged cells -that's a completely different field to what many pharma companies produce, and they wouldn't be able to afford such a venture -especially if they're not guaranteed for it to work out.

So it's easy to say they sit on cures, when in fact it's a hugely complicated process, not understood by the majority of the population more often than not.

Bongalongherb

But we still need to understand and acknowledge the nastiness of some of these pharmaceutical companies, how can anyone trust them with this carry-on ?...

(Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline Plc agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor criminal charges and pay $3 billion to settle what government officials on Monday described as the largest case of healthcare fraud in U.S. history.


The agreement, which still needs court approval, would resolve allegations that the British drugmaker broke U.S. laws in the marketing and development of pharmaceuticals.


GSK targeted the antidepressant Paxil to patients under age 18 when it was approved for adults only, and it pushed the drug Wellbutrin for uses it was not approved for, including weight loss and treatment of sexual dysfunction, according to an investigation led by the U.S. Justice Department.

The company went to extreme lengths to promote the drugs, such as distributing a misleading medical journal article and providing doctors with meals and spa treatments that amounted to illegal kickbacks, prosecutors said.

In a third instance, GSK failed to give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration safety data about its diabetes drug Avandia, in violation of U.S. law, prosecutors said.

The misconduct continued for years beginning in the late 1990s and continued, in the case of Avandia's safety data, through 2007. GSK agreed to plead guilty to three misdemeanor criminal counts, one each related to the three drugs.

Guilty pleas in cases of alleged corporate misconduct are exceedingly rare, making GSK's agreement especially unusual.

The agreement to settle the charges "is unprecedented in both size and scope," said James Cole, the No. 2 official at the U.S. Justice Department. He called the action "historic" and "a clear warning to any company that chooses to break the law."

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Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/02/us-glaxo-settlement-idUSBRE8610S720120702

Miprocin

steddyeddy wrote: »

Do you distrust the rental, education or other sectors whose job it is to maximise profits.

These industries don't make money from people being ill. I don't distrust the Pharm. Industry as such. I do find some of what they do unethical.

The Pheasant2 sums it up pretty well.

The Pheasant2 wrote: »

I think my distrust is rooted in the fact that they prefer to treat illness (long term pay off) rather than cure it (once off paymemt).

I understand they are a business but still...undecided on whether capitalism and healthcare can ethically go hand in hand.

Turtwig

steddyeddy wrote: »

Do you distrust the rental, education or other sectors whose job it is to maximise profits.

Even if there's no profits involved we shouldn't trust anything blindly. People with the best of intentions can still royally screw us and not know it e.g Anti-vaxxers.