Seven Toxic Effects of Drug Companies

I am the first to see the strengths and virtues of free enterprise model as it applies to sales and drug development. This model encourages pharmaceutical companies to employ talented people and take risks in developing new drugs for serious medical problems. But let’s face it, the current practices also produce undesirable effects. 1. When the drug was wonderful suddenly last month is not good. It was pleasant to look at the pharmaceutical companies are suddenly new, changes in the patentability of drugs when their patents expire old. For example, since the 1970s, Abbott made a dance with different formulations of valproic acid (used for seizures, migraines and bipolar disorder). As a first step, the brand was Depakene, but when the patent has expired, Depakene suddenly was not good, no more, and Depakote (just different enough to be patentable), was the only drug we should think. Then, when the patent failed Depakote, suddenly it was not good, either. Now, Depakote ER (extended release) is the only way to travel. This approach to rework the old long-acting drugs in the formats worked for other pharmaceutical companies as well. For example, GlaxoSmithKline has seen the same dance with their forms of bupropion for depression, the evolution of Wellbutrin Wellbutrin SR (sustained release) for Wellbutrin XL (extended release). Wyeth, see a good thing, followed the same path, with an antidepressant venlafaxine, Effexor from Effexor XR to (sustained release). It is just an amazing coincidence how the new, suddenly, better medicines appear just when the old and the end face of generic drugs. 2. When they make us forget that many older drugs. Since 1954 we have had the effectiveness of anti-psychotic drugs to treat schizophrenia, but in the early 1990s a series of new anti-psychotic drugs emerged, now called “atypical” or “new” anti-psychotic. Suddenly, the older drugs – and therefore all generics at affordable prices – were not good. Only the new patented anti-psychotics have been any good and might even be guilty of professional misconduct if a drug is prescribed older (or a series of prescription to a patient who appears to be done as well). Indeed, a new generation of psychiatrists cycling through training programs with this concept in mind, rarely writing a prescription for an old drug. The alleged superiority of new drugs has been tested in the recent CATIE (Clinical Antipsychotic Trials in Intervention Effectiveness) study and to be absent. The study compared four new drugs to another drug, perphenazine, and differences in results were minimal to none. 3. When they divert attention from non-drug treatments. Pharmaceutical companies sell drugs. Therefore, when it comes to marketing their products, they have no interest in promoting – or even mention – the non-drug treatments. There are no sellers making the rounds of doctors’ offices to remind doctors of the rigorously proven the benefits of training in the management of stress and tension migraine type headaches, or the cognitive-behavioral counseling for depression. 4. When we hook on samples. Doctors to receive samples of patented (high mark-up) and not non-patented drugs (low margin) drugs. Therefore, patients are referred to the expensive drugs by using these “loss”. ” 5. When they shape the medical practice. Pharmaceutical companies aggressively court the leaders believe, as faculty in medical schools, with financial incentives such as the cost of an impressive commitments. They also subsidize medical publications. The effects of these marketing activities on medical practice are not necessarily beneficial for patients. For example, tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) is a clot dissolving expensive drug approved for use in stroke. Its benefits are modest and the risks are real (cerebral hemorrhage and death). Thoughtful clinicians might reasonably conclude that the benefits of the administration of tPA do not outweigh the risks. But this is not the message which comes from the thinking of many leaders and publications. Instead, the implication is that the administration of this drug is a standard of care, and it constitutes professional misconduct by failing. 6. When representatives push unapproved uses. Recently, a sales representative for Pfizer said that his company of the drug, pregabalin is effective in preventing migraine. It should not have said that. Pregabalin is approved by the FDA for the treatment of epilepsy and nerve pain, but not migraine. Although doctors in the United States are allowed to prescribe drugs for “off-label” uses of drugs, companies are prohibited from advertising their drugs for unapproved uses. Indeed, Pfizer has difficulty pushing other drugs, gabapentin, for unapproved uses. 7. If doctors do not think critically about what they do. This, strictly speaking, is not a gap in the drug business. But because sellers can see that doctors are expensive, branded drugs, the names of the cheaper (or more efficient) alternatives May not come to mind when prescriptions are written.

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