The drug company Pfizer is best known for Lipitor, a drug that brings cholesterol down and Viagra, a drug that brings other things up. But the “world’s largest research-based pharmaceutical company” which sits between Goldman Sachs and Marathon Oil on the Fortune 500, is also closely associated with a seemingly never-ending series of scandals.
Speaking and consulting gigs for drug companies can be lucrative for doctors. Birmingham, Alabama, psychiatrist James E. Parker was paid more than $21,000 in speaking fees between January and March by a Johnson & Johnson company that sells mental health drugs.
They are the nightmare guests at dinner parties. But picky eaters have no control over what they like and could be suffering from an eating disorder, according to psychologists. US researchers are considering giving picky eaters an official classification for the first time and plan to put them in the same bracket as those who have anorexia and bulimia.
Imagine being a parent taking your 10-year-old daughter to the doctor where she gasps for air and suddenly dies in your arms. You are informed afterwards that a toxic dose of prescribed medication caused her death. Imagine leaving your house to have lunch with friends, while your husband and 11-year-old daughter are happily cuddled together watching your daughter’s favourite TV show Animal Planet. You return home hours later, walk upstairs to her bedroom and find her hanging from the valence of her bed.
AstraZeneca (AZN) says it has lost a crucial internal document that would explain how an ad for its antipsychotic Seroquel misleadingly claimed there was “no weight gain” with the drug and described its “favorable weight profile.” But the company admits it kept the six-year-old envelope that once allegedly contained the ad’s approval certificate, according to a ruling by the U.K.’s Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority.
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