The Problem With the Left and Pharmaceutical Companies

[varkam]

Pharmaceutical companies get a bad rap. A lot of it, in my opinion, is deserved. Merck, for example, buried data that suggested that Vioxx increased the risk of heart disease in order to push it to market. Were I to have things my way, the sanctions for that sort of thing would be very severe. I'm not talking execution or anything, but after something like that happens, I don't think your company should be around any longer. I think that the personal finances of everyone who was involved in making that decision should be put into a liability fund and they should be barred from working in the medical field for the rest of their days.

But I digress. I think that, while the majority of the criticism leveled at pharmaceutical companies is certainly warranted...some of it isn't. I read on DU and elsewhere from time to time that pharmaceutical companies are engaged in a world-wide conspiracy to (a) keep us all sick, (b) give kids autism, (c) actively prevent the cure for cancer/AIDS/the common cold from coming to light. So on and so forth.

The problem with that sort of stuff is that, sans hard evidence, it's a lot like calling GWB Hitler. Don't get me wrong - chucklenuts is by far the worst president of the past few generations and probably the worst president we've ever had. He's taken us into at least one unnecessary war and FUBARed another. He's cut taxes on the richest among us, slashed environmental protections, crippled FEMA, and gutted the SEC (which, by the way, is one of the reasons we're in the current fix).

But he's not Hitler.

And my impression is that when you make that comparison, like the Godwin's Law of old, you just come off sounding a bit desperate.

And that's what gets me about some folks here and on other bastions of liberal thought and pharmaceutical companies. There are so many legitimate criticisms that you can make of pharmaceutical companies - why go for the ones that involve some international Byzantine cabal? Why not go for the ones that have some real meat on them?

Don't mistake me. I'm not saying pharmaceutical companies are moral actors - they're not. Indeed, no corporation is a moral actor just by virtue of what a corporation is. What I am saying is that we ought to concern ourselves with very big and very real problems that are staring us straight in the face (like the cost of drugs being driven by DTC-advertising, for example) and less with the tin-foil.

That's just my .02, though.

[angrycarpenter]

1. They are the best equiped to develop cures.

But they don't, there is no money in it. They would rather develop drug therapies to treat symptoms. The best biochemists in the world are involved with providing new treatments for minor ailments of the western world rather than impacting third world scourges.

[varkam]

3. I don't think that...

because there isn't a cure that it means that they're not working or developing one because there's no money in it. That's kind of what I was talking about in the OP.

[angrycarpenter]

10. Think about it.

When was the last time an announcement was made that a cure for anything had been found? Maybe it's late and I am tired but I can't think of any. How many times have we heard of a breakthrough that never came to anything? All of the time. Drug therapy that requires a lifetime of prescriptions is a hell of a lot more profitable than a short term treatment that leads to a cure. The only proof I have is that they are capitalists and operate as such.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

13. They are constantly working on vaccines.

[Raineyb]

20. The money's not in vaccines

The pharmaceutical companies are looking for the next blockbuster drug because that's where the big money is. There are diseases that could be wiped out but there's no money in it. That's why the only reason a cure for sleeping sickness is out there is because it has a secondary, more profitable use: the removal of unwanted facial hair.

Regards

[varkam]

17. Again...

just because there isn't a cure doesn't mean that pharmaceutical companies are conspiring to keep one from us. And we often hear about breakthroughs at the in vitro or animal testing stage that don't pan out when it comes to people - a lot of times that's just how medical research goes.

But, as a counter-point, what about Gardasil? It's not a cure, but it's a cancer preventative.

[tigereye]

47. and an expensive and perhaps unnecessary one...

that only is preventive for a limited period of time...


whoops, now I'm on the other side! :rofl:

[PVnRT]

30. That's how drug discovery works

Around 90% of the stuff they try out doesn't even get out of the lab, and much of the rest fails on clinical trials.

Furthermore, given ethical concerns in the medical profession, testing isn't as good as it could be. There really needs to be a four-group test:

1) Patients told they are getting the drug that are getting the drug
2) Patients told they are getting the drug but really get a placebo
3) Patients told they are getting a placebo that get a placebo
4) Patients told they are getting a placebo but really get the drug

Since 2 & 4 violate ethics standards amongst doctors, there are a good number of medicines that come out that have effects only marginally better than placebo effects.

Besides, a company that comes up with a cure for AIDS will be the wealthiest company in the world. Ditto for cancer or diabetes - those diseases, like smallpox and polio, don't go completely away simply because most people are vaccinated.

[EstimatedProphet]

36. What you're describing is performed under a double-blind study design

And double blind studies are used pretty frequently in biostatistical design. It also falls under a crossover model, which is another model that is used frequently.

[Avalux]

29. No they aren't. The government should be subsidizing research -

providing grants to scientists in academic settings to develop CURES for diseases that can't be prevented. Diseases that can be prevented should be - at the very least there needs to be serious preventative medicine effort in this country. Of course if that happens, big pharma loses their moneymakers.

Pharmaceutical companies are in the business of providing drugs that lessen symptoms but don't cure; drugs that need to be taken indefinitely (for hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, etc.). They aren't interested in cures; that's why they do no R&D for antimicrobials.

[FarCenter]

4. Most basic research that leads to new drugs is done in universities

And is paid for by the taxpayers.

Drug companies spend a lot on trials, approvals, and marketing. Not so much on R&D.

[MercutioATC]

2. Ooh, now you've done it...

You're being rational. You must pay.


:popcorn:

[KittyWampus]

5. Rational? LOL! Throwing out straw men is the antithesis to rationality

"...I read on DU and elsewhere from time to time that pharmaceutical companies are engaged in a world-wide conspiracy to (a) keep us all sick, (b) give kids autism, (c) actively prevent the cure for cancer/AIDS/the common cold from coming to light. So on and so forth."

REALLY?

The OP'er has found multiple people on DU who literally claim pharmaceutical cos are engaged in a world-wide conspiracy to purposely:

(a) keep us all sick
(b) give kids autism
(c) actively prevent the cure for cancer/AIDS/the common cold from coming to light
(d) So on and so forth.

Basically all the Opening Poster is doing is calling those who find fault with how pharmaceutical co's do business and conduct research and market products conspiracy nutters.

And just out of curiosity- I wonder how many DU'ers believe the Auto Industry would conspire with Petroleum to keep gas guzzlers on the road and thwart alternative fuel cars. My Word! They would NEVER do that.

[varkam]

7. Pray tell, did you buy all that straw or do you farm your own?

Basically all the Opening Poster is doing is calling those who find fault with how pharmaceutical co's do business and conduct research and market products conspiracy nutters.

If you're going to recap my argument in big, bold letters, you'd do well to at least accurately characterize my views. No where did I call "those who find fault with who pharmaceutical co's do business and conduct research and market products conspiracy nutters." I would invite you to go back through and re-read what I have written. Pay extra-special attention to this part:

There are so many legitimate criticisms that you can make of pharmaceutical companies - why go for the ones that involve some international Byzantine cabal? Why not go for the ones that have some real meat on them?

(emphasis added)

[KittyWampus]

8. thanks for correcting me. You throw out straw men and not red herrings.

[varkam]

16. Oh, I get it. You didn't stop by to actually discuss anything.

You just popped in to tell me how wrong I am without actually reading what I have to say.

[elocs]

6. I agree with the Bush/Hitler thing. It was great around here for us to congratulate ourselves

about how clever we are long with the whole "chimp" thing, but it was too over the top for a lot of people who might have been convinced except we made Bush into such a buffoon, cartoon caricature. Anybody here afraid of a cartoon caricature? Most people aren't either and there were people out there who might have been convinced about Bush expect for our making him to be either a joke or Hitler that they then considered everything we had to say as being dismissive hyperbole.

Yet we continue to do it, making people who are truly dangerous not taken seriously by ridiculing them and making a joke of them so others simply dismiss us as being over the top. Liberals can be so self centered in believing that everyone should think and believe exactly as we do without exception. We love free speech, but tend to dismiss it unless it parrots our own beliefs because we know we have all the right answers, so the answers of those who disagree with us must therefore be wrong.

[tabatha]

9. Our Daily Meds

“Could drugs be killing people but escaping all blame, leaving them to harm even more Americans until someone, finally, catches on?” Ms. Petersen asks. Given the information that her book uncovers, this a purely rhetorical question. Her study cites reckless and questionable behavior in all aspects of drug companies’ research and marketing ploys, even if much of this is familiar territory. It has been explored by earlier crusaders (notably Marcia Angell in “The Truth About the Drug Companies”) and in Ms. Petersen’s own journalism. She spent four years as a reporter covering the drug industry for The New York Times.

“Our Daily Meds” begins by illustrating the established drug-company practices that have led to this sorry juncture. There is the rigging of studies, so that to be deemed “effective” a drug need only perform better than a sugar pill. There are the promotional strategies that evade the need for F.D.A. warnings by, say, planting logos for the sexual enhancement drug Viagra and the antidepressant Wellbutrin on Nascar vehicles. There is the co-option of doctors and university researchers by aggressive, payola-dispensing drug company representatives.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/books/17masl.html

BTW, I can cite a personnel experience, where I was over-medicated - and it was not me who came to that conclusion, but another doctor. I have been paying the consequences ever since.

[Odin2005]

11. The people that bash Big Pharma seem to think the "Alternative Med" quacks aren't just as evil.

The cognitive dissonance shown by the sycophants of "Alternative medicine" quackery is astounding.

[Warpy]

12. My continued existence on the planet depends on

being able to get a few drugs whose quality and potency I depend on. The companies that have produced these drugs have never let me down.

However, I have never been reticent when it comes to the sins of some of the worst of Big Pill, companies whose ethics are so weak that the management should be forbidden to utter the word.

Much of the rage against Big Pill comes from people who realize they're subsidizing low cost drugs in countries with national health insurance, which is true. Some of it comes from the fact that drug companies have hidden adverse reactions to some of their blockbuster drugs, also true. My own rage comes from the actions of patent holders in delaying generics from coming on the market through frivolous lawsuits.

However, if Big Pill had a cure for the common cold or cancer, you can bet your ass it would be patented and on the market accompanied by an advertising blitz. Saying they're suppressing such cures is just plain silly and obfuscates the arguments about the very real sins they've committed against us.

That doesn't mean treatments are always going to come from drug companies or from research into new drugs at the university level. There is always the possibility of a treatment modality nobody has ever thought of before coming out of a backyard tinkerer.

Unless it's proven by rigorous testing, however, you're much better off trusting the stuff put out by Big Pill.

Really.

[Toucano]

14. But Big Pharma are Nazis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IG_Farben#World_War_II

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

[northofdenali]

15. My problem with Big Pharma?

$300 a month for drugs that can be had in Canada for less than $40 a month.

FUCK BIG PHARMA.

[Vinca]

18. I'm still waiting for the Big Pharma shoe to drop on statin drugs.

Apparently since the statins were introduced, while the rate of heart attack deaths has gone down, heart failure deaths have gone up. The heart, of course, is our most important muscle and statins have been associated with muscle problems. I wouldn't get within a mile of them.

[Avalux]

19. It's not going to happen.

In fact Pfizer, who was about to lose it's patent to Lipitor and open it up to generics, was just given an extension on the patent. Lipitor, the oldest and most popular of the statins, if it goes generic - would cost Pfizer billions in losses because they have NOTHING to replace it as their moneymaker. Statins will never get yanked by the FDA either.

Big Pharma no longer puts money into R & D; they just twist the laws with their established 'designer' drugs - the ones baby boomers will take the rest of their lives - so they can keep raking in huge profits. The are also predators on smaller companies that are developing new drugs; suck them up.

It's a racket. I've been in the business for over 20 years and you wouldn't believe the crap I know. Since I just got laid off, maybe I'll start a whistleblower blog.

[conscious evolution]

21. You really should do that

A whistle blowers blog would be a good thing for the industry.

[Raineyb]

23. I hadn't heard about the extension

But you are 100% correct. Pfizer would have lost billions if it had gone generic and they have not a damn thing to replace it hence the purchase of Wyeth.

Of course if it had gone generic Pfizer still could have manufactured and sold Lipitor under their generic brand and probably still make a profit. They manufacture generic Azithromycin and Fluconazole (well they did not sure about it now since the plant that did most of the Azithrymcin and Fluconazole is closed now) but it's not quite the profit they make under the branded name so I guess it's just not enough.

Just plain greed is all it is.

Please let me know the url of your blog if you ever start it. I don't have 20 years in the business but the 10 years I spent in the industry did reveal a few things. I'd be interested in reading your insights.

Regards

[Vinca]

24. It's a good time for whistleblowers.

The Madoff whistleblower has gotten everyone's attention. If only the SEC had listened to him 10 years ago.

[TZ]

34. I am an insider and you

Are gonna be waiting a long time for a whistleblower cause THERE ARE NONE . Statins work. Signed a former scientific whistleblower

[Vinca]

39. So did Darvon. nt

[Raineyb]

40. Statins aren't the end all to be all for what a whistleblower could expose

How about how the industry manipulates the patent system just to name one thing? That ought to have the light shown on it.

Regards

[Hannah Bell]

45. baycol.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

38. We are much better at saving people having heart attacks now.

People that survive heart attacks are the most likely to have heart failure.

David

[leftchick]

22. no cure for type one diabetes in decades

my son's insulin is $150.00 a bottle, he needs at least three every few weeks for his pump. You do the math. :eyes:

[irislake]

27. My dog's insulin

is $26.00 a bottle and lasts over a week. But I live in Canada.

[leftchick]

31. I wish I lived in Canada

but I am guessing my son's chronic illness would keep us from emigrating there. :(

[irislake]

37. Maybe not

Check it out. But hopefully things will get better in your country now that Bush and the Neocons are out of power.

[HughMoran]

25. You're right

I often overstate the case against them as well. Since they have no defenders here, it's easy to get away with blaming them for all the ills (literally) of the world. Heck, I have family that work in the pharmaceutic industry and they're just hard working people trying to do the right thing. If the many thousands of smaller companies had the resources to take down the larger firms, you can bet they would. It's not easy and the FDA rules make it more difficult for smaller companies to succeed (or course these FDA requirements are critical for our safety.)

[leftchick]

26. how timely

watch these then get back to me


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x278797


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_--xnJVC2AU&feature=related

Big Bucks, Big Pharma pulls back the curtain on the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry to expose the insidious ways that illness is used, manipulated, and in some instances created, for capital gain. Focusing on the industry's marketing practices, media scholars and health professionals help viewers understand the ways in which direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertising glamorizes and normalizes the use of prescription medication, and works in tandem with promotion to doctors. Combined, these industry practices shape how both patients and doctors understand and relate to disease and treatment. Ultimately, Big Bucks, Big Pharma challenges us to ask important questions about the consequences of relying on a for-profit industry for our health and well-being.

Featuring interviews with Dr. Marcia Angell (Dept. of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Former Editor New England Journal of Medicine), Dr. Bob Goodman (Columbia University Medical Center; Founder, No Free Lunch), Gene Carbona (Former Pharmaceutical Industry Insider and Current Executive Director of Sales, The Medical Letter), Katharine Greider (Journalist; Author, The Big Fix: How the Pharmaceutical Industry Rips Off American Consumers,), Dr. Elizabeth Preston (Dept. of Communication, Westfield State College), and Dr. Larry Sasich (Public Citizen Health Research Group).

[HughMoran]

28. The first video (before you edited) is very damning of doctors for being dupes for big pharma

There is plenty of blame to go around and clearly the O/P never said that big pharma wasn't deceptive and driven by profit.

[leftchick]

32. my point is

and the second video makes clear, Big Pharma has no interest in cures, ans a lot of research has been taken away from the traditional university approach to disease. If they are driven by profit, why try to cure anything?

[HughMoran]

33. It's true and why it might be in our interest to make it easier for the many small pharma companies

to get their products to market. I bet a cleverly crafted piece of legislation could be put together to promote more competition in the industry. Instead of fighting with the giants, allow the giant slayers to have money and other tools to take them down. Whadda ya think?

[TZ]

35. Absolutely true

It's such a complex field though it's much easier to scream cover up then to try to understand.plus a lot of very good research comes from public-private research. Academia could not accomplish much without the resources of pharmas and vice versa. Now before they scream SHILL at me as some are wont to do let me say that I have been in academia as well as commercial work and the WORST science I saw was in academia

[Individualist]

41. Rah, rah DLC

:eyes:

[KG]

42. nationalize the phamacutical industry along with nationalizing health care.

[Dappleganger]

43. My husband has worked in pharma manufacturing for the past 8 years...

and today/tomorrow is interviewing with a start-up pharma company (came here from Australia), but they are funded with another big pharma. As in all businesses there are good and bad everywhere. Part of the problem with big pharma is that the FDA has been seriously (dangerously) dismantled, neutered, whatever you want to call it. They are either not able to provide good enough oversight OR are refusing to provide adequate oversight of the pharmacy industry to keep us safe.

As for pricing, IMO they are like the oil companies. Not the people who find the oil, do the actual hard work of discovery and invention but the OWNERS, the stockholders, the board members, etc. They are the ones who causing these insane pricing structures.

Republican hope that these companies will regulate themselves, but the evidence is obvious that they won't. There again, not all of them are 'evil' but the bigger they become the easier it is to lunge headfirst into a quagmire of greed, to the detriment of the consumer and the health care system.

[readmoreoften]

44. I'm not sure that's from "the left". The Alex Jones rightwing trends more towards "demonic readings"

of corporate intent than, say, social democrats or revolutionary socialists. The anti-authoritarian right demonizes corporations because their goal is to get rid of them and bring back "good companies with Christian values"--whatever the hell that is. The left knows that the problem is capitalism itself. It doesn't matter if large populations of people die from "demonic CEOs" or bureaucratic failure to a leftist. Leftists don't have to convince people that capitalists are UTTERLY EVIL AND SINISTER in order to suggest change. They simply need to point out that the system trends toward inefficiency and dehumanization and then offer a socialist perspective.

[tigereye]

46. I love how sensible you are!

(and brave, too!)


:yourock: