AstraZeneca, Are You Fucking Kidding Me?
Joe, who continues to make me look bad by knowing more than I do, sent me a link to an article about AstraZeneca from the St. Petersburg Times, which is (and this calls for all caps) ABSOLUTELY UNBELIEVABLE:
AstraZeneca, maker of the blockbuster antipsychotic Seroquel, is battling to keep information about the drug out of the public’s view … for the public’s own good.
This month in Orlando, lawyers for the drugmaker will argue that unsealing company documents, including unpublished clinical trial data and letters from the FDA, could harm “a vulnerable patient population.”
“This (disclosure) could jeopardize public safety by causing confusion and alarm in patients, who may then discontinue their medication without seeking the guidance of a medical professional,” lawyers for the drugmaker said in a recent filing in federal court.
This is utter and complete bullshit. AstraZeneca is running scared from revelations that could turn them into another Eli Lilly, so they’re inventing this ridiculous excuse to pretend they’re protecting People Like Us from learning the truth about their meds. To be clear: That’s the premise here—that I’m so mentally unstable that I can’t handle the truth.
So better to keep me in the dark about the dangers of my medication, otherwise I might run out and shoot people or jump off a building or something.
I am outraged by this. The article, by Times staff writer Kris Hundley, breaks it down further and examines all the issues. It also says, “The company said it is aware that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia is investigating Seroquel’s marketing practices, most likely based on whistle blower complaints.” I’ll try to get more information on that if I can.
Seroquel maker wants to seal info from you, “for” you
liz | 10:00 AM | BIG PHARMA, meds, side effects
Outrage yes, surprise no.
The industry that lobbied Congress in 2003, to make it impossible for federal insurance, Medicaid and Medicare to use it vast market power as the largest insurance block to negotiate with big pharma to negotiate price. The federal government was kept from saving money for the consumer. We permit them to use their market size, their power, but when government would be in a position to slow the more than 15% increases every year of pharma spend, or the more than 30% profit they get, its not permitted.
This Congress and our President have their work cut out for them, because we’ve been asleep.
Outrage is a good thing, remember the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 permitted big business to take advantage and they acted like “drunken sailors”.
Why aren’t there already laws in place that force drug companies to disclose all pertinent information regarding a product?
My favorite part of the article is this graf:
I demand this information be made available now… if only for the entertainment value.
Astra Zeneca had a duty to protect vulnerable populations, ex. those with dementia, mental illnesses, and children. Though all the facts have yet to come out it appears that they traded on that very vulnerability and now seeks to further exploit it by arguing that it is now trying to protect those it failed to protect in the first place. I trust AZ will continue to benefit from this vulnerability as did Eli Lilly with Zyprexa.
Lilly was fortunate that its target populations were often those least empowered and consequently least likely to sue. There has been much reporting about settlements with Federal and State governments but too little about Zyprexa victims, their injuries, and the relatively small number of individual litigants – about 32,000.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be critical of the press for its failure given that organizations which claim to advocate for mental health consumers have failed to promote awareness of the possible damages available to those injured by antipsychotics. I suppose this is not surprising when they so often benefit from the largess of the very manufacturers.
Doubtless, makers of current antipsychotics and those to be introduced will look to the Zyprexa settlement and what arises from the Seroquel litigation for guidance when considering their financial exposure vis-a-vie user claimants. They will find considerable comfort in knowing that those who actually took antipsychotics and were injured did not, in so many cases, sue. Consider that the Vioxx settlements with user claimants and their survivors have been $4.85 billion to date versus $1.2 billion for Zyprexa.
Didn’t something like that happen with Remeron? I still take that(albeit generic) too with Seroquel, but I actually got part of Remeron’s class action in the mail. It was like 80 or 100 dollars. I never had heard of people actually getting money from Class Acts. I always thought the money restitution never really happens and it was more about blowing a whistle and justice being served.
Hi TTQ, The Remeron settlement dealth with an antitrust violation where Organon kept generic versions off the market. The Zyprexa claims I referred to are based on personal injuries and wrongful deaths.
Seroquel is poison. Ask me. June 28, last year, I was driven to a local e-room. A psychiatrist had prescribed Seroquel for me after a week+ of insomnia. I couldn’t fall asleep and when I got up, I couldn’t walk and could not speak coherently. My companion thought I was having a stroke. I managed to say a few things on the hotline to the insurance company’s nurse that led her to snap “You MUST go to the hospital NOW, this sounds like poisoning from a drug interaction.” I’d already taken lithium. The e-room threw me into a CAT scan and several other tests. No stroke, but a tremendous drug reaction that I was afraid may have permanently affected me. It didn’t. So the insomnia continued until I got acupuncture. The psychiatrist’s reaction was on the level of “Oh well.” Needless to say I am not longer her patient. To say again: Seroquel can be poison.
I got off Seroquel, but it was tough to do because I felt dependent on it. When my psychiatrist took me from 100mgs to 300mgs, I had this odd reaction of what I called seizures. I would stand near a light and then shrieked in pain because I would be SHOCKED, my body would convulse and I screamed out loud. Then after awhile my body grew adjusted to it and I began getting smaller seizures from things like computer screens. It made me dissasociate. It also made me severely depressed, and I don’t remember if it helped with hallucinations or worsened them.
Let us – and I am here via Icarus Project link – let us remember that all these serotonin, dopamine receptor neuron fancy schmancy atypical meds are nothing more than TRANQUILIZERS which dull our senses. I, and others, consent to swallow them out of fear of one more mood swing, or one more hospitalization. I go to bed every night feeling drugged, sluggish and doped. That’s the point: to dull our sensibilities so we don’t upset the apple cart.
But this: the cart will be upset. Sick the lawyers on ‘em.
And, in good time, we might have a society that cares enough to listen when people are in crisis.
a future social worker
Agree with you on the issue of sealed documents. It’s more done to protect the image of the criminals of a corporation than anything else. It’s unfortunate that there is a pathological intimate relationship between corporations and the DOJ.
However, the one who submitted such documents of course has them in their posession. What is to prevent them from sending such documents to, say, a talented blogger, or a journalist at one of the top 5 newspapers in the country?
Reply: