Infinite Unknown

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s health ministry has halted the use of vaccines made by Pfizer Inc and Sanofi-Aventis SA to prevent meningitis and pneumonia following the deaths of four children.

The infants died shortly after receiving the vaccines and while it was unclear if there was link between the deaths and vaccines, use of Pfizer’s Prevenar and Sanofi’s ActHIB will be suspended while the deaths are investigated, the ministry said in a statement.

A ministry safety panel is scheduled to discuss findings in the investigations on Tuesday.

In February last year health authorities in the Netherlands said no relation was found between Prevenar and the deaths of three infants who had received the vaccine.

Three of the children that died in Japan were administered Prevenar together with ActHIB. In addition, three of the children also received a mixed vaccine against diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus on the same day they received the other vaccines.

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Tags: Diphtheria, Global News, Health, Japan, Meningitis, Pfizer, pneumonia, Prevnar, Vaccination, Vaccine, whooping cough

Flashback:

- Now Legal Immunity for Swine flu Vaccine Makers (Global Research):

The US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, has just signed a decree granting vaccine makers total legal immunity from any lawsuits that result from any new ?Swine Flu? vaccine. Moreover, the $7 billion US Government fast-track program to rush vaccines onto the market in time for the Autumn flu season is being done without even normal safety testing.

The US Supreme Court also trashed the constitution, which is now officially dead:

- US Supreme Court Landmark Decision: The Constitution is VOID

And now the US Supreme Court shields Big Pharma.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Supreme Court ruled that federal law shields vaccine makers from product-liability lawsuits in state court seeking damages for a child’s injuries or death from a vaccine’s side effects.

The high court on Tuesday ruled for Wyeth, which is now owned by Pfizer Inc, in a lawsuit brought by the parents of Hannah Bruesewitz, who suffered seizures as an infant after her third dose of a diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccine in 1992.

Pfizer and other vaccine makers had argued that a Supreme Court ruling for the plaintiffs could open the door to a flood of lawsuits – many by families who believe vaccines cause autism — and threaten the supply of childhood vaccines.

Pfizer Executive Vice President and General Counsel Amy Schulman said the company was pleased with the ruling.

“The Vaccine Act that Congress enacted nearly 25 years ago appropriately places the responsibility for determining the optimal design of life-saving childhood vaccines in the hands of expert federal agencies, not a patchwork of state tort systems,” she said.

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Tags: Big Pharma, Global News, Government, Health, Law, Pfizer, Pharmaceutical Industry, Politics, Supreme Court, U.S., Vaccination, Vaccine

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – More than 17,000 doctors and other healthcare providers have taken money from seven major drug companies to talk to other doctors about their products, a joint investigation by news organizations and non-profit groups found.

More than 380 of the doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other professionals took in more than $100,000 in 2009 and 2010, according to the investigation released on Tuesday. The report said far more doctors are likely to have taken such payments, but it documented these based on information from seven drugmakers.

The payments are not illegal and usually not even considered improper. But the investigation by journalism group ProPublica, Consumer Reports magazine, NPR radio and several publications showed doctors were sometimes urged to recommend “off-label” prescriptions of drugs, meaning using them for conditions they are not approved for.

And the report points to several studies showing that even small gifts and payments to doctors can affect their attitudes, and many companies have stopped giving out once-common gifts such as pens, cups and other objects carrying drug brand names.

“Tens of thousands of U.S. physicians are paid to spread the word about pharma’s favored pills and to advise the companies about research and marketing,” the group says in its report, available here

The groups used information from seven drugmakers — AstraZeneca, Cephalon, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Merck and Pfizer.

“Some of the companies were forced to disclose this information as a result of legal settlements; others released it voluntarily,” Consumer Reports said.

It said more than 70 other pharmaceutical companies have not disclosed payments made to doctors, although the healthcare reform law passed in March will require them to do so by 2013.

“This investigation begins to pull back the shroud on these activities,” Dr. John Santa, director of the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center, said in a statement.

“The amount of money involved is astounding, and the ProPublica report’s account of the background of some of the physicians is disturbing.”

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Tags: AstraZeneca, Big Pharma, Cephalon, Doctors, Drugs, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Global News, Johnson & Johnson, Medicine, Merck, Pfizer

In what is being hailed as a major victory for workers in the biotech and nanotech fields, a former scientist with pharmaceutical firm Pfizer has been awarded $1.37 million for being fired after raising the alarm over researchers being infected with a genetically engineered “AIDS-like” virus.

Becky McClain, a molecular biologist from Deep River, Connecticut, filed a lawsuit against Pfizer in 2007, claiming she had been wrongly terminated for complaining about faulty safety equipment that allowed a “dangerous lentivirus” to infect her and some of her colleagues.

The Hartford Courant describes the virus as “similar to the one that can lead to acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS.” Health experts testified that the virus has affected the way McClain’s body processes potassium, which they say causes McClain to suffer complete paralysis as often as a dozen times per month, the Courant reports.

McClain’s lawsuit (PDF) asserted that Pfizer had interfered with her right to free speech, and that she should have been protected from retaliation by whistleblower legislation. Continue reading »

Tags: AIDS, Big Pharma, Drugs, Government, Health, Medicaid, Medicare, Pfizer, Pharmaceutical Industry, Politics, Science, Scientists, Virus

Dr. Scott Reuben

(NaturalNews) It’s being called the largest research fraud in medical history. Dr. Scott Reuben, a former member of Pfizer’s speakers’ bureau, has agreed to plead guilty to faking dozens of research studies that were published in medical journals.

Now being reported across the mainstream media is the fact that Dr. Reuben accepted a $75,000 grant from Pfizer to study Celebrex in 2005. His research, which was published in a medical journal, has since been quoted by hundreds of other doctors and researchers as “proof” that Celebrex helped reduce pain during post-surgical recovery. There’s only one problem with all this: No patients were ever enrolled in the study!

Dr. Scott Reuben, it turns out, faked the entire study and got it published anyway.

It wasn’t the first study faked by Dr. Reuben: He also faked study data on Bextra and Vioxx drugs, reports the Wall Street Journal.

As a result of Dr. Reuben’s faked studies, the peer-reviewed medical journal Anesthesia & Analgesia was forced to retract 10 “scientific” papers authored by Reuben. The Day of London reports that 21 articles written by Dr. Reuben that appear in medical journals have apparently been fabricated, too, and must be retracted.

After being caught fabricating research for Big Pharma, Dr. Reuben has reportedly signed a plea agreement that will require him to return $420,000 that he received from drug companies. He also faces up to a 10-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.

He was also fired from his job at the Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass. after an internal audit there found that Dr. Reuben had been faking research data for 13 years. (http://www.theday.com/article/20100…)

Business as usual in Big Pharma

What’s notable about this story is not the fact that a medical researcher faked clinical trials for the pharmaceutical industry. It’s not the fact that so-called “scientific” medical journals published his fabricated studies. It’s not even the fact that the drug companies paid this quack close to half a million dollars while he kept on pumping out fabricated research.

The real story here is that this is business as usual in the pharmaceutical industry.

Dr. Reuben’s actions really aren’t that extraordinary. Drug companies bribe researchers and doctors as a routine matter. Medical journals routinely publish false, fraudulent studies. FDA panel members regularly rely on falsified research in making their drug approval decisions, and the mainstream media regularly quotes falsified research in reporting the news.

Fraudulent research, in other words, is widespread in modern medicine. The pharmaceutical industry couldn’t operate without it, actually. It is falsified research that gives the industry its best marketing claims and strongest FDA approvals. Quacks like Dr Scott Reuben are an important part of the pharmaceutical profit machine because without falsified research, bribery and corruption, the industry would have very little research at all. Continue reading »

Tags: Big Pharma, Fraud, Health, Medicine, Merck, Pfizer, Pharmaceutical Industry, Science

Vaccine use halted after baby deaths

The Dutch health institute RIVM has stopped the distribution of a batch of Pfizer’s Prevnar childhood vaccine following the death of three babies shortly after being vaccinated.

The vaccine has been labeled ‘do not use’ and and new supplies have been made available to doctors.

The exact cause of the death of the infants is not yet known, the RIVM said. The babies died between one and 11 days after the vaccination.
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Tags: Babies, Health, Holland, Medicine, Pfizer, Prevnar, Vaccination, Vaccine

(NaturalNews) In spite of claims by pharmaceutical companies that they do not discharge their products into the water supply, federal researchers have discovered that waters downstream of pharmaceutical plants are more heavily contaminated with drug residue than waters elsewhere in the country.

In one study, conducted by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), researchers tested the water entering two water treatment plants down the sewer line of several pharmaceutical factories, as well as at other plants not receiving sewage from drug plants. Researchers discovered drugs at “much higher detection frequencies and concentrations” at the plants receiving effluent from pharmaceutical factories. Drugs detected included opiates, a barbiturate and a tranquilizer.

In a second study, researchers from the Environmental Protection Agency tested the water entering a wastewater treatment plant in the city of Kalamazoo, Mich., down the sewage line from a Pfizer drug factory. They found that the water entering the plant was exceptionally high in levels of the antibiotic lincomycin, which the factory was producing at that time.

“There’s some product going down the drain,” said Bruce Merchant, the city’s public services director.

Prior studies have shown that lincomycin can cause genetic mutations, and that it encourages the growth of cancer cells when combined with minute concentrations of a number of other drugs that are common in surface water.

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Tags: Antibiotics, Big Pharma, Drugs, Environment, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, Health, Pfizer, Pharmaceutical Industry, U.S., USGS, Water

Pfizer’s general counsel said: “We regret certain actions taken in the past, but are proud of the action we’ve taken to strengthen our internal controls.” Source: BBC News

The only thing Big Pharma ‘regrets’ is getting caught.

Illegally promoting drugs for conditions that had not been approved by regulators is common practice in the pharmaceutical industry.

Related articles:
- Pfizer whistleblower’s ordeal reaps big rewards
- Nigeria Issues Arrest Warrants for Top Pfizer Officials After Drug Experiments Conducted on Children

Pfizer Inc. drugs, from right, the pain pill Lyrica, antibiotic Zyvox, and schizophrenia treatment Geodon are arranged for a photo at C.O. Bigelow Pharmacy in New York on Sep. 2, 2009. Photographer: JB Reed/Bloomberg

Sept. 2 (Bloomberg) — Pfizer Inc. agreed to a $1.2 billion criminal fine, the largest in U.S. history, and a felony plea by a subsidiary to close an investigation into what government lawyers described as fraudulent marketing of drugs.

The fine, over sales practices for a painkiller since pulled from the market, makes up the biggest single share of a record $2.3 billion settlement, announced today, between the U.S. Justice Department and New York-based Pfizer. The deal includes $1 billion in civil penalties, the largest non-criminal fraud case against a drugmaker, the department said.

Pfizer, the world’s largest drugmaker, entered into a five- year integrity agreement with the Health and Human Services Department as well. The government pays for medicines through several health programs and joined the investigation after private whistleblowers filed lawsuits in three states. The criminal case revolved around allegations that the painkiller Bextra and three other medicines were promoted for uses other than those approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

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Tags: Big Pharma, Corporations, Economy, Fraud, Global News, Health, Pfizer, U.S.

We’ve followed plenty of controversies around drug trials, from ghostwriting to keeping quiet about unflattering results. But the latest news is particularly eye-popping: A prominent Massachusetts anesthesiologist allegedly fabricated 21 medical studies involving major drugs. Yikes.

Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass., has asked several anesthesiology journals to retract the studies, which appeared between 1996 and 2008, the WSJ reports. The hospital says its former chief of acute pain, Scott S. Reuben, faked data used in the studies.

Some of the studies reported favorable results from use of Pfizer’s Bextra and Merck’s Vioxx, both painkillers that have since been pulled from the market. Others offered good news about Pfizer’s pain drugs Lyrica and Celebrex and Wyeth’s antidepressant Effexor XR. Doctors said Reuben’s work was particularly influential in pain treatment and that they were shocked by the news.

“We are left with a large hole in our understanding of this field,” Steven Shafer, editor-in-chief of Anesthesia and Analgesia, told Anesthesiology News, which first reported on the retractions. “There are substantial tendrils from this body of work that reach throughout the discipline of postoperative pain management.”

Pfizer had funded some of Reuben’s research and had also paid him to speak on behalf of its medicines. “It is very disappointing to learn about Dr. Scott Reuben’s alleged actions,” Pfizer said in a statement to WSJ. “When we decided to support Dr. Reuben’s research, he worked for a credible academic medical center and appeared to be a reputable investigator.”

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Tags: Big Pharma, Corporations, Drugs, Health, Medicine, Merck, Pfizer, Science

Paul King, mine manager, inspects a Caterpillar Inc. haul truck at the Australian Bulk Minerals iron ore mine at Savage River in Tasmania, Australia, on Nov. 6, 2008. Photographer: Carla Gottgens/Bloomberg News

Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) — Caterpillar Inc., Sprint Nextel Corp. and Home Depot Inc. led companies today announcing at least 72,500 job cuts as sales withered and construction slowed amid a global economic recession that may persist through 2009.

The biggest layoffs were at Peoria, Illinois-based Caterpillar. The world’s largest maker of construction equipment said it’s cutting 20,000 jobs after fourth-quarter profit fell by almost a third.

Pfizer Inc., the New York-based drugmaker that’s acquiring competitor Wyeth for $68 billion, said it will close five factories and eliminate 19,000 jobs, or 15 percent, of the combined company’s workforce.

The firings came as American jobless claims hit a 26-year high, reaching 589,000 in the week ended Jan. 17, as shrinking demand for products and services forced companies to lower costs.

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Tags: Caterpillar, Economy, General Motors, GM, Home Depot, Pfizer, Sprint Nextel, U.S., Unemployment