Tag Archives: Eli Lilly

New Mental Hospital Unveiled but Nurse Ratched Now Pusher for Big Pharma

Although the Oregon State Hospital was not specifically named in Ken Kesey’s novel, on which the 1975 Academy-award winning movie was based, it could have been. For its legacy of real abuses spans over a century.

Although the chilling film starring Jack Nicholson is now decades old, it wasn’t until state lawmakers toured the facility in 2004 that they discovered the cremated remains of 3,600 patients who had been locked away and forgotten inside. “You can see the place where they showered. You can see their scratchings on the wall,” said Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney. “They lived there. And then often people forgot them. They just took them there and it was over.”

Disciplined doctors receiving pharmaceutical funds

About 48 of the more than 1,730 California doctors who received money from pharmaceutical companies over the past 21 months have been the subject of disciplinary action, a database compiled by the investigative news organization ProPublica found. ProPublica found that the seven drug companies paid $6.7 million to 290 doctors who faced disciplinary action or other regulatory sanctions in various states. San Francisco psychiatrist Karin Hastik, for example, took $168,658 in speaking and consulting fees from Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline since 2009. But in May, the Medical Board of California placed Hastik on probation for negligence, prescribing drugs without prior examination, and failing to keep adequate records about a patient she had been caring for since 2000. Hastik did not return calls for comment.

Seven Ways Medical Conflicts of Interest are Disguised

The American Psychiatric Association, in its 240 page guide to its May annual meeting, “forgot” to mention the conflicts of interest of its own president Alan Schatzberg, MD. It had to print them on the newsletter circulated the third day of the meeting. Nor were names even alphabetized for easy information retrieval. (Schatzberg is financially linked to Eli Lilly, GSK, Merck, Pfizer, Forest, Takeda, Sanofi-Aventis and eight other companies.)

Another Psychiatric Drug, Another Potential Criminal Investigation—J&J’s Antipsychotic Risperdal

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) said it’s in discussions with the government to resolve a long-running investigation of whether it improperly marketed the antipsychotic Risperdal. In 2004, the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management issued a subpoena seeking documents regarding sales and marketing of Risperdal, as well as payments to physicians and clinical trials for the drug, from 1997 to 2002. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia sent an additional subpoena in 2005, seeking information about Risperdal marketing and adverse reactions associated with the drug. Grand jury subpoenas have been issued seeking testimony from various witnesses.

Big Pharma executives facing legal threat; including potential fines and prison time

Frustrated that even billion-dollar fines seem to have little effect on pharmaceutical firms, the Food and Drug Administration has increasingly signaled its intent to use a legal doctrine spawned by those long-gone rodents to bring criminal charges against top executives, even those who might have been unaware of company misdeeds. Earlier this month, Eric Blumberg, FDA litigation chief, told an industry audience that his agency was looking for cases to use what is known as the Park Doctrine as a tool to “change the corporate culture” of firms that have thus far shrugged off other penalties. Under the Park Doctrine, a corporate officer is liable for illegal corporate actions the officer should have known about or was responsible for preventing.