Recent Project News

• Dr. Fugh-Berman commented on how our health records are being used for individualized marketing for Reuters in "Are drug companies using your health records to sell you stuff?" on January 9:
  
  There is a slippery slope when it comes to de-identified data and electronic health records, says Adriane Fugh-Berman, a doctor who is director of PharmedOut, a research and education project at Georgetown University Medical Center. The digital systems can email reminders to patients to refill medications or encourage them to get vaccines. It's not always clear who is paying for those messages and if the content is from the doctor or some kind of advertorial.
  
  "It's extremely misleading to patients," Fugh-Berman says.
   
• Dr. Charlea Massion and Dr. Fugh-Berman criticized the new cholesterol guidelines in the National Women's Health Network Women's Health Activist: 
  
  "New guidelines released in November 2013 by the American Heart Association (AHA) and the American College of Cardiology (ACC) advised preventing heart attacks by treating cardiovascular risk factors instead of high cholesterol. Seemed like a good idea at first. It turns out, though, that the new guidelines will double the number of people eligible for statins — just one more way for pharmaceutical companies to expand the market to more people who don’t need drugs."
   
• Dr. Thomas G. Sherman and Dr. Fugh-Berman called out a scientific journal, Food and Chemical Toxicology, for inappropriate retraction of a study on genetically modified foods and the herbicide Roundup. "Rounding Up Medical Journals" appeared in  the Hastings Center Bioethics Forum:
  
  "The progression of science is not the least bit linear, but the process has to proceed unencumbered by censorship of unpopular or commercially disadvantageous results...The self-correcting nature of science can only work when industry does not taint the process."
   
• In an exchange of comments in PLOS Biology, Dr. Fugh-Berman exposed the role of the Global Alliance of Publication Professionals as "... a five member rapid-response public relations team apparently set up to attack anyone critical of pharma-funded writers."
   
• On January 30, Dr. Fugh-Berman participated in the "Conflicts of Interest and the Pharmaceutical Industry" panel discussion for George Washington University medical students. 
   
• Thank you to our donors who helped us raise $19,000 during our holiday fundraising drive. We are extremely grateful for your support in helping us fund PharmedOut's exciting 2014 endeavors, such as our seminar series, new publications and educational tools, and a website overhaul.

PharmedOut's Resource of the Month: Catch up on industry marketing stories over the years in PharmedOut's News Archive.

Physicians: Send us your trash! PharmedOut collects and archives marketing materials from industry, including sales rep "leave-behinds", reprints (mailed or hand-delivered), advertisements, and invitations to CME events or promotional talks. So please don't throw them away; send them to us!
 

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News Round-up 
(for more, please follow @pharmed_out on Twitter!)

January 2: AlterNet: "7 Drugs Whose Dangerous Risks Emerged Only After Big Pharma Made Its Money" Part 1: http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/7-drugs-whose-dangerous-risks-emerged-only-after-big-pharma-made-its-money Part 2: http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/6-drugs-whose-dangerous-risks-were-buried-so-big-pharma-could-make-money

January 6: British Medical Journal: "Clinical trial data: get them while you can" http://www.bmj.com/content/348/bmj.g63

January 6: ProPublica: "In A Major Shift, Medicare Wants Power to Ban Harmful Prescribers" http://www.propublica.org/article/in-a-major-shift-medicare-wants-power-to-ban-harmful-prescribers

January 8: Medical Media & Marketing: "Patent cliff a drag on 2012 health spend" http://www.mmm-online.com/patent-cliff-a-drag-on-2012-health-spend/article/328471/

January 8: Bloomberg News: "Novartis Accused of Paying Kickbacks for Exjade Sales" http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-09/novartis-accused-of-paying-kickbacks-for-exjade-sales.html

January 10: ProPublica: "Big Data + Big Pharma = Big Money" http://www.propublica.org/article/big-data-big-pharma-big-money/

January 13: MinnPost: "'Low T' meds use differs markedly in U.S. and U.K." http://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2014/01/low-t-meds-use-differs-markedly-us-and-uk

January 14: British Medical Journal: "Should journals stop publishing research funded by the drug industry?" http://www.bmj.com/content/348/bmj.g171

January 15: Reuters: "FDA staff cautious about J&J's latest Xarelto application" http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/01/14/us-jj-xarelto-fda-idINBREA0D0UV20140114

January 16: PharmaFile: "Doctor-pharma relationships ‘can’t be trusted’" http://www.pharmafile.com/news/182056/doctor-pharma-relationships-can-t-be-trusted

January 19: British Medical Journal: Dr. Ben Goldacre calls for an audit of clinical trials in the BMJ "...by whatever means necessary, the methods and results of all previous trials must be accessible to the medical and academic community, which produces the guidelines and systematic reviews that inform patient care."

January 21: GroundUp: PharmaGossip's leaked email shows that pharmaceutical companies planned a  a campaign to scuttle the South African government's draft intellectual property policy, despite a denial by the pharmaceutical industry that it had approved the campaign.

January 23: Wall Street Journal: "Drug Makers Tiptoe Back Into Antibiotic R&D" http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303465004579322601579895822

January 23: The New York Times: "Hospital Chain Said to Scheme to Inflate Bills" http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/24/business/hospital-chain-said-to-scheme-to-inflate-bills.html

January 25: Mumbai Mirror: Medecins Sans Frontieres criticizes statement by Bayer's chief executive that Bayer developed its cancer drug Nexavar for people who could afford the medicine, not "for Indians". 

January 25: Salon: "5 shady ways the drug industry is influencing your doctor" http://www.salon.com/2014/01/25/5_evil_ways_the_multi_billion_dollar_drug_industry_is_in_bed_with_your_doctor_partner/
 

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Check These Out!

PharmedOut's seminar series will return to Georgetown this spring! Stay tuned for more information about dates and speakers, and we hope you can join us.

Are there any events, petitions, or resources you think PharmedOut should know about? Please send us suggestions for possible inclusion in future newsletters.