Doctors Paid To Prescribe Generic Pills

Hilarious.

According to the WSJ, it seems that while the Worshipful Company is busy lobbing cash the way of quacks, in order to have them prescribe their newer drugs (ie, the ones with the longest patent period), the insurance industry is equally busy minimizing its own overhead by bribing quacks to prescribe generics. A good time to be a quack, I reckon:

Doctors Paid to Prescribe Generic Pills
(Due deference to Clinical Psychology)

I read a piece, recently, (which can be found in my archives, somewhere), about a practice that has been identified in Germany (where a third of all bribery and corruption cases involve the health industry, apparently), whereby quacks are paid a fee for filling out a form when they switch a patient to a new drug.

Quack, quack, quack.

Aropax

The Political Compass

This is quite good fun. Aubrey Blumsohn's got a post on this, just now, if you want to know what the rationale is behind it:

Pharmaceutical bloggers - take the political test

I'm afraid that my technophobic tendencies won't allow me to cut and paste the graphic that I generated, but here's the link, anyway:

My results

It seems I'm more to the left and more libertarian than either the Dalai Lama, or Gandhi! I think this may be summed up as "you can do what the fuck you like, until it impacts negatively on me (according to my perception)!"

As Aubrey points out, in his post, there are plenty of questions in the questionnaire that have lots of variables included within them, which one is not able to clarify, before answering. Dependent upon the degree of accuracy to which one works, one may find it unsatisfactory.

Matt

RE: 1) Grieve and 2) a thought to raise

There's an item on Aubrey Blumsohn's blog, just now, which is concerned with advertising in the BMJ:

BMJ advertising watch - 19 January, 2008

I was reminded how I had sent an email to Dr Fiona Godlee, the BMJ's editor, a couple of months back, in which I had raised a question on this point. I think my interest at the time was more specifically directed towards the question of academic freedom at journals such as the BMJ, but still. The BMJ didn't return my mail:


From: m.holford@hotmail.co.uk
To: fgodlee@bmj.com
Subject: RE: 1) Grieve and 2) a thought to raise
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2007 22:15:17 +0000

Dear Dr Godlee,

I was interested to read recently that the BMJ had declined to publish an academic paper concerning the issues surrounding Smithkline Beecham's Protocol 329. The story is infamous, of course, and has had much ink spilt over it.

I read Healthy Skepticism's detailed, but somewhat dry, account with a raised eyebrow (Paxil Study 329). Indeed, it may or may not have been this that prompted my own less scrupulous, but altogether funnier analysis (if I may be so self-congratulatory), which regrettably none of those involved, including JAACAP, felt the need to comment on, when I mailed them an advance copy:

Ghost in the Machine

In any event, there are grave concerns over this matter, as there should be, and it felt odd that a journal of the standing of the BMJ should fight shy, particularly given your own comments with respect to "reputations for hire" and the whole ghostwriting thing ("Secrets of the Drugs Trials," Panorama, January, 2007), which I would have thought the BMJ would wish to make its position clear on. I understand that the reasoning for this reluctance to publish the paper was down to the legal cost of validating the claims made.

May I enquire as to the estimated cost of this validation process? Given BMJ policy on taking advertising revenue from pharmaceutical companies, perhaps you could also let me know how much it costs to place a full-page advert in the BMJ, these days? Does the BMJ offer preferential rates to certain customers, at all?

Best regards


Matthew Holford

Dog bites man: drug companies suppress negative data

D'oh! Everybody's covered this: Furious Seasons, Clinical Psych, Pharmalot, Seroxat Sufferers, Seroxat Secrets, Uncle Tom Cobbley, and all. Oh, well, if you missed them, it's here:

Antidepressant studies unpublished

Aside from the NYT, WSJ and Reuters, I don't see a great deal of coverage in the mainstream western media (again). Still, time enough for that, I suppose. One in two studies fail? Hmmm. What's the benefit of Seroxat, gentlemen?

Matt

Seroxat withdrawal book author wants stories

I saw this piece on Seroxat Sufferers:

Seroxat withdrawal book author wants stories

and exchanged a couple of 'mails with Shelly. The one proviso, if you're interested in contributing, is that you're prepared to put your name to your piece, simply because the story is so much more compelling, when the authors are named.

I need stories (good or bad although I haven't heard a good one yet) of Paxil withdrawal, attempted suicides coming off paxil, deaths of loved ones discontinuing paxil, etc. This book will be about Paxil as an addiction. Gsk must be accountable. I have the resources to get the book out there, I just need the people to come forward. Of course it can be anonymous and they can approve the final edit of their story. In the meantime, I'm looking for any information I can about the history of GSK and figuring a way to write it up without being sued. By having a book of personal stories, the word is out there, people are aware, they are aware that we will not stay quiet, and hopefully we can save some lives.

I know that this blog doesn't get a lot of traffic, but then I post in lots of other places, too.

Matt

Additional (Saturday, 19 January)
Shelly has posted on Paxilprogress. Looks like there's plenty of enthusiasm for the project!

request for paxil withdrawal stories

Marketing Outstrips R&D Spending 2-1: Study

I've a funny feeling that I might want to make recourse to this little snippet of information, in the future, so, I'll just pop in a line to introduce this piece, and then link you through to Pharmalot:

Marketing Outstrips R&D Spending 2-1: Study

There are a couple of reasons I find it interesting. First, because the high price of brandname drugs is usually put down to the high R&D costs (running into seven figures a day in the UK, we're told). If this study is anywhere near correct, then someone's telling porkies (again). Second, I was advised that one should be wary of any organization that is marketing driven, because it's generally the case that if those in positions of authority within a firm have their background in marketing, then those responsible for compliance will be leaned on heavily to look the other way...

Matt

Comedy Club Award for Outstanding Achievement...

...for the month of January goes to...

[pause for effect] Janssen Pharmaceutica [rapturous applause for a talent that has long gone unrecognized].

Phil Dawdy's got a piece on a recent Lancet paper, where a study has "discovered" that antipsychotics don't actually work, when it comes to reducing aggression:

Atypical Nation: Placebo Beats Anti-Psychotics In Treating Aggression

There has been comment on this in NYT, although I haven't found anything in the British press, on the subject:

Drugs Offer No Benefit in Curbing Aggression, Study Finds

And it is in this piece that Janssen excels itself, as follows:

"...Janssen, a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, said that Risperdal only promotes approved uses, which in this country include the treatment of irritability associated with autism in children..."

In light of the fact that the Arkansas AG appears keen to fuck Janssen royally over its promotion of off label uses, I felt that the only explanation for the Janssen comment in the NYT had to be a delightfully absurd sense of humour:

Anti-psychotic drug marketed improperly, AG lawsuit says

Whatever the motivation, it's damn funny.

Matt