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Our Daily Meds By Melody Petersen   Shortly after I finished Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs, I read that Pfizer was fined 3.2 billion for illegal marketing of four drugs.The drugs were Bextra, a painkiller, Geodon, an antipsychotic; Zyvox, an antibiotic; and Lyrica, an anti-epileptic drug. Once the Food and Drug Administration approves drugs, doctors can prescribe them off-label for any use, but makers can't market them for anything other than approved uses. Bextra was taken off the market in 2005 at the request of the FDA.   Melody Peterson has done an excellent job of investigative reporting with this book, and as one of the reviewers at Amazon, a Pharmacist said “I would hope that the FDA and members of Congress would all read it and take it seriously.” Ms. Petersen has documented a range of practices on the part of the pharmaceutical industry that amount to conning doctors and patients, and the results are that our life expectancy relative to less developed countries has actually dropped over the last thirty years.   The range of questionable practices is amazing, it seems there is nothing this industry hasn’t tried to promote the latest drug du jour. In addition to heavily advertising new drugs (and calling this expense research & development), the drug industry showers doctors with free samples, dinners, trips under the guise of education, and direct payment of “consulting” fees to doctors who promote their drugs. Lately, there are offers of free “informational” booklets on various diseases being made to the general public. Or “health fairs” that purport to screen and educate us.   We owe it to ourselves to get educated as to all the marketing practices that this industry is promoting to our detriment, and Ms. Petersen’s book is a good start. It is a fascinating read, and her writing style will keep your attention.   The pharmaceutical industry also spends huge sums on lobbying our congresspeople to insure favorable treatment. It behooves us all to learn what is going on here, and to carefully question our doctors about any meds that they are prescribing. But, I think the ultimate answer would probably be a congressional investigation of this industry, and an overhaul of our laws relating to political contributions and lobbying practicing. This will never happen until an educated public starts demanding it.   In the meantime, we can all start watching for the next “miracle” drug to be pulled off the market after it has caused the unnecessary deaths of a few hundred people. And wondering, how long did the drug company know about the bad effects while they continued their marketing campaigns?   E-mail this article to a friend

On Feb 22 2010 7:26AM Anita, Plainfield said:
The next drug to be proven unsafe is Avandia, prescribed for diabetes. The FDA is recommending that it be taken off the market due to increased heart attack risks, but the manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline is resisting.


On Mar 9 2010 8:00AM Rita@Goldivas, said:
If you take Avanda, check out this article: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/03/09/warning is-your-diabetes-drug-the-one-found-to-kill-thousands.aspx

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