A Conversation
with David Healy, MD, author of the new book Pharmageddon
Rosenberg: Your new book, Pharmageddon, gives a
bleak picture of the doctored data, skewed drug trials and rigged treatment
guidelines that characterize today's pharmaceutical industry. Many people will
be shocked to learn the abuses are not limited to the US, where
direct-to-consumer advertising is legal, but found in Europe.
Healy: The situation is identical. Pharma
actually finds socialized health care systems easier to exploit. And despite
direct-to-consumer advertising, more money is spent on marketing to doctors who
are the real consumers. They are also pressured by the treatment guidelines
process which is based on "evidence" that Pharma makes sure to keep
secret so they are really in the dark, though they may not realize it.
Rosenberg: One example you give of Pharma's reach and
power is the eerie symmetry between the Texas Medication Algorithm Project
(TMAP), conceptualized and funded by US Pharma, and Britain's National
Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).
Healy: Despite their public/private differences,
both organizations recommend the use of branded antipsychotics like Risperdal,
Zyprexa and Seroquel before the use of older, affordable antipsychotics which
of course enriches Pharma. One of the other issues is this--there is a new bill
aimed at speeding up the FDA approval process yet again--and also getting
regulators to take into account the jobs that come with a strong pharmaceutical
sector. Both America and Europe
have been keen to keep their companies happy and have turned a blind eye to the
outsourcing of clinical trials to Asia and Eastern Europe.
Rosenberg: In Pharmageddon, you chronicle how
clinical trial oversight has gone from a hospital and university-based system
to a for-profit system run by clinical research organizations or CROs.
Healy: The drug companies have outsourced all
their operations from drug development and testing to clinical trials to
scientific and academic writing so that they have become nothing but marketing
organizations at their core. At each juncture where they have spun off a
traditional responsibility, no one has objected and so it continues.
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