Thursday, November 12, 2009

Fudging Results

Drug maker Pfizer has seen plenty of court room action in the last few years. The have had law suits brought against them and have either lost or settled the cases costing them billions of dollars in compensation.

They have been accused of and settled cases for inappropriately marketing drugs such as Neurontin, Bextra and Celebrex. The drug company has encouraged physicians to prescribe the medications for indications that are not FDA approved. Physicians can prescribe medications as they see fit, but advertising has to be strictly for the ON LABEL use.

Not only has Pfizer broken the rule with providers but also in some of their direct to consumer advertising. But that is all OLD news.

Now we have learned that the clinical trial data that Pfizer presented to the FDA for approval of Neurontin( an epilepsy drug) to treat new conditions, was, well, fudged. In a current lawsuit, the company is accused of withholding reports that were negative and in some cases, changing the study design in order to promote positive findings.

My response to this latest news is this. If they did it with Neurontin then they did it with other drugs. So which other drugs did they also misrepresent to the FDA, to scientific journals, to health care providers and to consumers? Are you taking a drug made by Pfizer?

Here are a few: Zoloft, Viagra, Aricept and Lipitor
Unfortunately, the list of products from Pfizer is huge and you will have to go to their website to look yours up. Though I hate to link to it, here it is!http://www.pfizer.com/products/rx/prescription.jsp

At this time I have a serious amount of concern regarding the veracity of this company.

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