TAKE TWO AND SUE ME IN THE MORNING
Feb 5th, 2013 by haileyrae
The Bayer Corporation, Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Meyer, Merck, Astra Zeneca, Pfizer and Abbott Laboratories all have two things in common; they are all being sued for a cornucopia of ailments including recalls, failures to warn, birth defects, wrongful deaths, and contaminations AND they’re among the most lucrative global pharma net earners in existence.
How can these lawsuit recidivists not only still be in business, but still be making the whopping big bucks?
Well Houston, we have a problem.
Pharmaceutical companies have cultivated and profited from the exploitation of a self perpetuating N. American addiction to prescription medication. This addiction wells from a collusive marketing campaign targeted at your own doctor and played out in your own family clinic.
Gwen Olsen, a former prescription sales rep blows the whistle on Big Pharma in her book, Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher. Olson states plainly that major companies systematically solicit doctors with an aggressive marketing infrastructure so that patients essentially become captive consumers. Not only are doctors solicited, they are given incentives for every prescription pushed.
An article from The Economic Times by Gauri Kamath reveals that,
… pharma companies…shower doctors with lavish gifts and sponsor foreign trips…to exotic destinations as part of their brand-promotion efforts, thus influencing their prescribing behaviour.
Pharmaceutical companies, doctors and patients have settled their codependent brains for a long winter’s nap-with a heavy reliance on sedating Benzodiazepines and a generous chaser of denial.
It boggles me how these guys not only make money hand over fist off widespread legalized addictions, they survive repeated litigation over irresponsible FDA approved prescriptive malpractice that lay waste to real people in real ways, and they continue to sell themselves as successfully as they exploit their market.
No one seems to bat an eye. I guess that’s not listed as one of the possible side effects.
When Doug Bremner asks, “What is going on here?”1 …I concur.
Commenting On Another Blog
1Gauri Kamath. “Government drafts official code of marketing practices for pharma industry”. The Economic Times. June 4, 2011.
2Doug Bremner.“Does America Have a Prescription Drug Problem?”. The Huffington Post. November 25, 2011.