Drug companies to reveal grant practices | Arthritis Information
Well, they're hoping to avoid making the physician disclosures - but it's starting to happen!
Pip
I just found out another way drug cos. get cash into drs. hands: "Surveys".
They pay them to take "surveys" about drugs. But the dr. who told me this said the surveys never really ask anything about problems he has recognized with a med.
Really?
He said usually from the survey, it is obvious the med they are talking about, and sometimes even when a drug does what it is supposed to do, there are other problems with it that drs. can see.
Really?
And the surveys never have a place to address those concerns.
Really.
I'm telling you...I'm feeling like a guinea pig here.
Pip
I have noticed on both my GP and RD's doors signs that say drug company reps may not come in without an appointment. I am hoping it means they are trying to avoid being solicited and influenced with free samples, etc.
[QUOTE=wanttobeRAfree]I have noticed on both my GP and RD's doors signs that say drug company reps may not come in without an appointment. I am hoping it means they are trying to avoid being solicited and influenced with free samples, etc.[/QUOTE]
I think they are. Our ped's office stopped taking samples. But the drug cos. will keep finding new ways to influence doctors. They send them a "survey" and say they will pay them to complete it. From what was described to me, the surveys are pointless. This doctor says he only does them because they pay him. Hello??????
Maybe they should pay us to take surveys! I'm betting they won't like the responses tho.
LOL
Pip
[QUOTE=Pip!]Maybe they should pay us to take surveys! I'm betting they won't like the responses tho.
Yeah, meds go to patients and thats a good thing.
Money goes into their pockets and influences how they prescribe - not necessarily in the best interests of the patient.
Pip
[QUOTE=mab52]Samples are not necessarily a bad thing. They often allow doctors to provide medicine to people who aren't in a position to be shelling out big bucks for meds.
[/QUOTE]
There was recently a study that patients who receive samples actually end up paying more for meds in the long run. Think about it - they aren't getting samples of generics.
Samples are great to see if you can tolerate a med before filling the rx.
It does not bother me if in fact the Physicians get payment for doing surveys. THey have student loans and have spent many years of studying hard and keeping at the cutting edge of medicine "for us".
I had a chronically ill daughter, we adopted her so we had no medical infomation. If it were not for the samples of formula and meds, we would have lost everything and we had an 8 year old son we were trying to raise as well.The samples made a huge difference to us. I have been forever thankful for them. Soy milk at the time was extremely expensive and she was still allergic to it.
I do know though about 28 years ago there was a survey that I was involved in concerning formula. The Ped was conducting it for the company. The results that he wrote up were ignored, the formula did cause more colic......I think that was the finding, it has been a long time ago. The point is, that the results were ignored. SO yes, the ped did not like that formula company because of that. I understood that and was supportive in his research finding.
I agree that the drug companies only want the results that best suits them, it is a shame.
I live near Pfizer. THey keep closing and tearing down buildings, laying people off, and generally are becoming smaller and smaller. Many of their buildings they cannot even donate to the community because the taxes are so high, the recipients do not want nor can afford the high taxes. From what I have heard from individuals that work there,it is actually cheaper for them to spend millions of dollars on tearing huge buildings down than to pay the taxes each year on them sitting empty.
THis may be just one reason why they push so hard on sales and samples. To make the sale. To bring in the money. It is a business. I am thankful for the research especially for the RA drugs, we would all be stuck with Plaquenil, MTX, and Gold shots if it were not for the research. THe drug companies as we all know, must pay for the research and the product, but then again......(clearing of throat) they charge waaaay tooo much for many of the biolics in my opinion!
It is just like everything else. There will probably be another shift, another change, another way or reason to make better or stronger meds and we the consumer get to foot the bill and pad their pockets so we can live a healthier liflestyle..........hopefully. I am sort of wondering when and if the drug companies will start buying eachother out.
I find it VERY HARD to believe that Pfizer is struggling financially, given that all the top earning companies in the Fortune 500 are pharmaceutical corporations. Corporations tend to downsize and downsize so their huge profit margin will look even huger for that fiscal term, thereby making the CEO look like a financial whiz and deserving of another obscenely large bonus. Believe me, these companies are not suffering financially, and a very small portion of their expenditure goes to infrastructure and research. The by far biggest expense they have is marketing.
A simple few minutes on google will provide some clarity on this, if you don't believe me.
For example,
this article, written yesterday, cites Pfizer as the second most profitable company in America:
Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil, the world's biggest oil company, leads the pack with $US34.5 billion, followed by New York's Pfizer, the world's largest drugmaker, with $US25.5 billion, and San Jose, California-based Cisco, the world's biggest maker of computer-networking equipment, with $US22.7 billion.Gimpy-a-gogo2008-04-14 12:25:33I forgot in my post to also point out that the majority of disease research happens through Universities and medical centres, NOT through pharmaceutical corporations. The corporations usually buy out any promising research (and then develope it if they can profit, and squash it if it's not profitable for them IE: any cures). So I'm not grateful to them for medical advances.Jode -
When they closed Ann Arbor Pfizer - they decimated the town, destroyed the infrastructure, and moved people to a less well performing area in Groton because it made fiscal sense. To whom? The Groton people were unhappy and by Pfizer's own memos THAT was the area to close.
GoGo is a right. Any innovative research was coming out of the University - and those people went to work for Pfizer. Where there innovations were now the property of Pfizer.
Puhlease - Pfizer could donate those buildings to the city - or to environmental groups. But thats some prime real estate. That isn't happening. They'll sit on that property, complaining about the real estate market of the town they destroyed, take huge tax write offs for depreciated property and other assorted business losses, waiting patiently until the market rebounds (3 - 5 years) then sell it to another corporation for an obscene profit.
That's what corporations do. Think Roger and Me.
Pip
Edited to remove my name twice! Sheesh!
Pip!2008-04-14 23:34:45Hey,
Everything should be hidden behind cleaned clear glass. Even these tax exempt .orgs. Do you realize that in 2006, 210 billion dollars was given to charity and or tax exempt orgs. On top of that you have to add the amount that was not reported, probably another 60 billion or so. I have been trying to find out how much money the roadbak.org has recieved in the last five years for a year now and keep getting the roadblock. org. Who are the big contributors, where does the money go and how much money was paid to the Harris Group to report a study in such a way that unsuspecting pain people think that it is an actual standardized drug trial, not a e-mail respondant study by mostly roadback members. Yep, I believe in clean windows for drug companies, doctors and even .orgs.
And Gimpy, of course phizer and other drug companies are struggling. They have to pay off the fda, the universities, the bio engineering firms and not just those in the U.S but payoffs to all the worlds universities, pharma, professors, arthritis orgs, all these millions of people that have to be shussed and paid off to insure that the miracle of ap therapy is kept from the painful, they only have so much money.
People make me so sick with "them" "they" "he" "she" "that doctor" "the doctor" "those people". Again, give us names so we can check out your stories. Of course the oil industry bought the design to the gasoline engine that got 100 miles to the gallon, right gimpy? It's been totally hushed for 30 years, right? Life is just a great big conspiracy and every one is involved. Any idea how much money and how many people would have to be paid off for a pharm to hijack a new medicine and it not be leaked. Marijauna does cause paranoia and the everyones after me feelings, that's just a fact, smoke up and clean all the windows.
LEV
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