Medical “Experts” Were Wrong About the Safety of Opioids
Story Highlights Addiction to and death from prescription painkillers is now a public health crisis in the United States. In the early 1990s, medical “experts” and “thought leaders” made claims convincing the medical community and the public that prescription painkillers were non-addictive when used in the long-term. Financial conflict of interest between opioid manufacturers and […]
Novartis Manipulated Data in FDA Biologics License Application
On Aug. 6, 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a statement saying that Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis AG submitted a biologics license application (BLA) for the spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) gene therapy Zolgensma (onasemnogene abeparvovec-xioi) with manipulated data and failed to inform regulators until June 28, 2019—more than a month after the […]
Pfizer Fined Again for Violating Drug Laws
Colombia’s national regulatory agency, the Superintendency of Industry and Commerce (SIC), has fined pharmaceutical company Pfizer $25,000 for allegedly inflating the price of several prescription drugs it sold in that country.1 2 On July 31, 2019, the agency stated: The decision was taken after verifying information related to PFIZER SAS’ commercial operations between July and December […]
Johnson & Johnson Fined $572 Million for “Greed” in Fueling the Opioid Crisis
In a lawsuit filed by the state of Oklahoma against Johnson & Johnson, Inc., Purdue Pharma LP and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., the pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries were ordered on Aug. 26, 2019 to pay $572 million in penalties for helping to fuel the opioid crisis in Oklahoma.1 Before the trial […]
Google Joins the Pharmaceutical Industry
Story Highlights Google, the world’s most widely used internet search engine, restructured itself to give semi-independence to its many subsidiary organizations under a new umbrella entity called Alphabet. Two of the divisions are focused on the business of medicine and operate in partnership with some of the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical companies that develop and […]
Big Shortage of Doctors for Chronically Ill Americans
Story Highlights A recent survey released by Merritt Hawkins reveals that not only are American hospitals and clinics facing a shortage of primary care physicians but also a shortage of medical specialists. The survey attributes this to an aging population. However, the report also reveals that there is a shortage of pediatric subspecialties indicating a […]