The last person make a medicinal commercial parody for YouTube

Merrill Goozner is one of our heroes. In fact, his 2004 book, The $800 Million Pill, was one of our inspirations for starting eDrugSearch.com. Obviously, ours is a for-profit venture — but we also think we are doing some good by offering consumers an alternative to Big Pharma’s rigged pricing system in the U.S. We recently asked Merrill about his interest in the pharmaceutical industry, his opinion on Canadian imports, and his predictions for the future of our healthcare system. Cary: You’ve covered many, many stories over the course of your career in journalism. What is it about the pharmaceutical industry that has captured and held your interest? Merrill: While attending the Breaux-Thomas commission hearings on Medicare reform on Capitol Hill…

Apparently, it isn’t enough for Sally Field to do commercials for Boniva — now she’s pimping it on Martha Stewart’s show. John Mack found this description on an online forum: Sally Field was on [Stewart’s] show today and mentioned that she has osteoporosis and wanted to talk about Bone Health … Sally mentioned medications, and said she takes the once-a-month Boniva. Martha interrupted her to ask if it’s full of vitamins and minerals. Sally said, “No, it’s a treatment.” Martha said, “Reeeally, no minerals?” WTF? Then Sally finally said she wanted to talk about Bone Health again, and again, Martha cut her off for a commercial break … One more segment, Sally has twice said, “I wanna talk about Bone…

Up the road a piece from eDrugSearch.com headquarters in San Antonio, John Young of the Waco Tribune-Herald has penned a terrific op-ed on SiCKO and our healthcare crisis. An excerpt: Ask the apologists for the system as it is, and realize that they have one interest in mind and one alone: the middle man. Another word for free enterprise. In this country, medicine is business. Understand? Big business. We’re not talking about the doctors, here, and neither is Moore. We’re talking about corporations — insurance companies and the stockholders they serve. Throw in American pharmaceutical companies. GNP-wise, it’s a whole other super power, except these soldiers carry briefcases and samples. Whether the issue is health coverage for all or affordable…

On the eve of the International AIDS Society conference in Sydney, Australia, the Brisbane Times tells the sad tale of how Big Pharma has used its influence over U.S. politicians to fight attempts by Thailand to provide low-cost AIDS drugs to its people: The world’s largest pharmaceutical companies are working to prevent developing countries from reducing the price of high-cost medicines. Put simply, in some cases “big pharma” places profits before lives … Since Thailand acted to protect the lives of vulnerable people, members of the US pharmaceutical industry lobbied the US Government to bully Thailand to capitulate. As a result the US Government placed Thailand on its “most wanted” list of intellectual property violators. And that opens the door…

From the AP: Purdue Pharma L.P., the maker of OxyContin, and three of its executives were ordered Friday to pay a $634.5 million fine for misleading the public about the painkiller’s risk of addiction … U.S. District Judge James Jones levied the fine on Purdue, its top lawyer and former president and former chief medical officer after a hearing that lasted about three-and-a-half hours … Designed to be swallowed whole and digested over 12 hours, the pills can produce a heroin-like high if crushed and then swallowed, snorted or injected. It took the feds this long to finally put 2 + 2 together? From 1996 to 2001, the number of oxycodone-related deaths nationwide quintupled. In 2002, the DEA stated the…

This story’s about a week old, but we wanted to call it to your attention if you didn’t see it. After a recent, widely reported study showed that padded hip protectors didn’t prevent bone breaks in elderly patients, the issue of hidden drug industry ties to medical research has once again resurfaced. Three of the authors of the study didn’t tell editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association that they had consulted for or received research money from the makers of bone-strengthening drugs. The Big Pharma relationship was uncovered by reporters. The AP talked with blogger Merrill Goozer, who called the case a “no-brainer” conflict of interest: Readers could easily interpret the study to say that since hip…

According to Peter Rost of BrandweekNRX and “Rost Watch” fame, Pfizer has announced that it will be terminating three execs in the HIV drug sales division. Rost says that two of these individuals have previously been mentioned in e-mails related to allegations about illegal premarketing of the HIV drug maraviroc, which is one of Pfizer’s most interesting new drug prospects. An FDA panel that had endorsed maraviroc ruled to delay the release of the drug after the premarketing allegations surfaced. More at PeterNRX.

In today’s Baltimore Sun, columnist C. Fraser Smith offers his take on U.S. Rep Chris Von Hollen’s bill that would provide inexpensive drugs to lower-income Americans: People may care as much about the cost of prescription drugs these days as they do about getting a good deal on a car. They’re up against the breathtaking drug costs a lot more often. At least they can talk to the car salesmen. Even if we’re not good at numbers, we probably get a better deal when we haggle. With cars, it’s accepted as the American way. So, what if we could bargain a little on the cholesterol meds? And what if the state came onto the showroom floor (as it were) to…

An Indian court has rejected Novartis’ challenge of a law that denies patent protection to drugs that are only minor improvements to earlier drugs. Novartis’ challenge came after the Indian government allowed drug companies to make generic versions of the cancer drug Gleevec. This is great news for consumers — both because it enables more people in the Third World to have access to affordable drugs, and because it encourages companies like Novartis to focus their R&D money on real innovation, rather than wasting valuable research dollars on gaming the system to extend patents. More from Ed at Pharmalot.

eDrugSearch.com is very, very proud to have established itself as a go-to site for those interested in the topic of cheerleader pharma reps and beauty queen pharma reps. And so now we present our Top 10 list of pharma girls from reality TV: 1. April Lewis, Big Brother 6 2. Heather Basciano, U8TV: The Lofters 3. Stephenie LaGrossa, Survivor: Palau and Survivor: Guatemala 4. Aisha Krump, The Rebel Billionaire 5. Ranji, Identity 6. Maria Hoidas, Fear Factor Couples 2005 7. Penny Ramsey, Survivor: Thailand 8. Tijuana Bradley, Survivor: Pearl Islands 9. Cristina C., The Bachelor #3 10. Kristina Grimes, The Apprentice (U.K.) Honorable mention: Andrea Baptiste, The Biggest Loser

Whenever I stop by the CafePharma message boards, I always regret that I don’t have more time to spend there. I learn so much every time. Consider this series of exchanges in the “Just for Women” section: How much cleavage do you ladies like to show the doctors? And if they’re fake, or extra big, do you like to show them off?… I show as much as it takes to get the business and it works… sensitive subject. wear camisoles under my suits in the summer because it’s hot. cleavage w/out the jacket? sure. but minimal to nothing with it on… I am proud of what I have (natural). I always dress (pleasure and work) tastefully, so I have no…

  We stumbled across a kind of soap opera/game show called “Moral Dilemmas” on a site called BustedHalo.com and thought we’d share it, since it involves a pharma rep. Basically, the idea is to tell a story that sets up a moral dilemma, and then let visitors to the site debate what the character should do in the situation described. Here’s an excerpt from the episode, “The Drummer and the Drug Rep”: Kara landed a good job as a drug representative for a large pharmaceutical company … recently much of Kara’s job has involved educating doctors on a new anti-depressant her company has developed called Serotonix. The drug is very similar to existing medications like Prozac and Zoloft in that…

In one of the lamer PR moves in recent memory, Johnson & Johnson has decided to sue the American Red Cross for unauthorized use of the famous red cross symbol. J&J has asked to have “all licensed products with the red-cross emblem destroyed and to permanently enjoin all sales of products bearing the emblem on first-aid, safety-preparedness and related products.” According to PeterNRX: J&J claims the company has been using the red cross since 1887, before the chartering of the Red Cross. J&J trademarked the design consisting of two intersecting red lines of equal length at least “as early as 1906,” according to the suit. J&J also claims that the Red Cross only has the right to use the trademark…

Since the rule change in 1996 that allowed Big Pharma to begin advertising directly to consumers, drug advertising budgets have exploded — while policing of such ads for accuracy has steadily declined, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine. The thing I find most troubling about the report is that even though we have far more drug commercials now than in 1996, fewer drug companies have been reprimanded for their ads. In 1996, 142 warning letters were sent out by the FDA. Last year, there were only 21. Either the drug companies are making flawless ads, or someone isn’t doing their job. Which do you think it is?