News tagged with 'Pharmaceutical Companies'

Will health care reforms result in cheaper drugs for American consumers? A bipartisan group wants to allow prescription medications from Canada, Europe, and elsewhere that could represent billions in savings. But the FDA is pushing back.

Pfizer, the world's largest drug maker, has been slapped with a record $2.3 billion civil and criminal fine for promoting four drugs for off-label use, paying off doctors and billing the government. Pfizer is a "repeat offender" says the government.

Prescription drug advertisements are supposed to be regulated by the FDA for content, but there are no requirements to review the ads before consumers see them.  So the FDA is asking consumers to help report misleading and false ads with this web site. 

A little light reading for your new year - three new books about the pharmaceutical industry and how it creates the maladies we all pay for. The review itself is worth the reading as it goes into the background of the cozy relationship between money and the pharmaceutical industry.

Key FDA career officials strongly objected to Bush Administration drug labeling regulations that would preempt state liability lawsuits, according to a new report by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The Wisconsin Medical Society has joined a growing number of professional societies, academic medical centers and legislators that agree physician gifts from the pharmaceutical industry are questionable, if not unacceptable forms of influence.

Drug makers are suddenly eager to disclose their payments to doctors and researchers for consulting, and speaking services as a federal government disclosure act is close to becoming law. Consumers will have more information to make informed decisions about health care and influence.

Two on-line petitions to Congress allow citizens to tell lawmakers what they think about federal pre-emption.  Don't know what means? Pre-emption may not be one of the hot topics in the news, celebrity chat, or featured on your morning talk show, but it has the potential to erode consumer protections and civil rights, potentially more impact on your everyday life than celebrity culture. 

Three Harvard psychiatrists are the focus of congressional investigators for not reporting about $3 million in payments from pharmaceutical companies, which happen to make drugs the doctors promote for hyperactive children.  

While U.S. drug companies take in billions annually, they usually try to start early to influence doctors-in-training. Two groups want to stop that practice and restore faith in medicine for people, so are shining the light on medical schools and their conflict of interest policies.