Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"APCO Worldwide is supporting Merck's PR efforts for the controversial" -- and deadly -- "arthritis drug Vioxx, which was found to increase heart attack risk in patients," reports O'Dwyer's.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
"The American Diabetes Association, a leading patient health group, privately enlisted an Eli Lilly & Co. executive to chart its growth strategy and write its slogan.
Submitted by Jonathan Rosenblum on
While even Wall Street was getting edgy about increasing reports of a fungal infection pointing to a Bausch and Lomb contact lens solution, the company's PR firm dryly glared at consumer advocates. "Bausch and Lomb has not yet recalled ANY of its products. Rather, its Renu MoistureLoc has been taken off the shelves. Who can I speak to about this inaccuracy?" asked Hill and Knowlton's Grace Healy in an email to Consumeraffairs.com.
Submitted by Bob Burton on
In a contributed column titled "Are Video News Releases All Bad?," Kevin E.
Submitted by Bob Burton on
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policy that precludes employees from accepting trips paid for by companies the agency regulates is easily side-stepped. Alexander Cohen reports that non-profit groups that "draw their members, their boards and even some of their funding from medical and pharmaceutical-related companies" paid for roughly one-third of the 3,600 sponsored trips received by hundreds of FDA employees since 1999.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Four years ago, almost no one had heard of Herceptin. Today, the drug is a household name, and British women with early-stage breast cancer are going to court for the right to get it, even though it is not actually licensed for use in early-stage cancer, and clinical tests have yet to prove it will ever save lives.
Submitted by Bob Burton on
In late January a comedian hosting the UK Pharmaceutical Marketing Society's Annual Advertising Awards ceremony joked that "twenty years ago it was all lap dancing and champagne for the doctors. These days you're lucky if you can give them a three-star hotel and a f***ing biro." Not so, it seems.
Submitted by Laura Miller on
When Citizens Against Unfair Health Care Taxes called Californians warning that a proposed state tax on Botox might lead to new taxes on other drugs, the group failed to disclose that it had been created by a PR firm working for Allergan Inc., the maker of Botox, according to the Sacramento Bee.
Submitted by Bob Burton on
A study published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, which concluded that taking painkillers could protect against oral cancer, has been exposed as being based entirely on fabricated data. "He faked everything: names, diagnosis, gender, weight, age, drug use. There is no real data whatsoever, just figures he made up himself. Every patient in this paper is a fake," Stein Vaaler, the director of strategy at the hospital, told the Guardian.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"A Congressional investigation of the money that drug companies give as supposed educational grants has found that the payments are growing rapidly and are sometimes steered by marketing executives to doctors and groups who push unapproved uses of drugs." In 2004, 23 drug companies spent $1.47 billion on educational grants, a 20 percent increase from 2003. The U.S.
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