Big Pharma gets put in the dock again
Is it right that a GP gets money for pushing drugs? Definitely not!
Could this common drug be at the heart of a new bribery scandle?
Big Pharma have been riding roughshod over common folk for decades.
Making huge profits from their products and doing their damndest to oppose any other approaches to healthcare other than pills, pills and more expensive pills.
But just occasionally their despicable tactics get found out and this week we saw one of their number have had their collars felt.
Britian’s biggest drugmaker has been asked about their conduct and, once more, been found wanting.
Basically, and not to put too fine a point on it, they have been bribing doctors to sell their products.
In the last three years they have faced the same charges from activities in the UK, China, the US and now Poland.
A BBC Panorama report has uncovered the story about 11 doctors and a senior GSK employee being hauled up in front of the courts in Poland with the prospect of many years detention more than likely.
More than that this prosecution of key employees could also see the entire group being challenged under the UK Bribery Act and US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act – and that has got the fat cats all of a fluster.
This isn’t the first time that they have been in this situation.
A series of bribery and corruption allegations have been circulating since early 2010 but it doesn’t seem like the wrist slaps they suffered as a result have made much difference to them.
Maybe a proper financial and legal sanction will stop them in their shoddy tracks.
Here’s how their little scam works.
When doctors become salesmen, no-one benefits
The prospect of a drugs rep arriving at your local GP’s practice with a brown envelope stuffed with cash is perhaps an idea none of us would be comfortable with.
However, the subtle way the drugs companies work with doctors means the end result is very much the same.
You see, as a reward for pushing out their version of an asthma drug the GSK country managers pay the GP for delivering conference papers on their behalf.
A nice little earner you might say, with the details of how it works coming to light because of a bit of whistle blowing by an ex-employee.
A former sales rep for GSK in the Polish region of Lodz, Jarek Wisniewski, said: “There is a simple equation. We pay doctors, they give us prescriptions. We don’t pay doctors, we don’t see prescriptions for our drugs.”
In the BBC report he is further quoted as saying:
“We cannot go to doctors and say to them, ‘I need 20 more prescriptions’. So we prepare an agreement for them to give a talk to patients, we pay £100, but we expect more than 100 prescriptions for this drug.”
“It’s a bribe”, Mr Wisniewski said, confirming that although on paper the payments were for educational services, the doctors understood very clearly that they must produce a certain number of prescriptions in return.
It was exactly the same tactic used by the company in China in 2013 when a £300m scandal was uncovered involving a network of over 700 middlemen and travel agencies, to bribe doctors and lawyers with cash and even sexual favours.
In 2012, GSK paid $3bn (£1.9bn) in the largest healthcare fraud settlement in US history after pleading guilty to promoting two drugs for unapproved uses and failing to report safety data about a diabetes drug to the Food and Drug Administration.
And if they are doing it in those regions you can be sure it is happening right across their organisation – even here in the UK.
I echo the call from Ben Goldacre in 2013 after the Chinese scandal broke where he said:
“Doctors should be responsible for declaring their own conflicts of interest on a simple register, ideally run by the General Medical Council, in the same way MPs do. If we believe these payments and this free education are ok, then we should tell our patients with a polite notice in the waiting room.”
This would mean we would see who has been putting the money up for our doctors and could then reasonably decide if we were being advised to take drug X rather than drug Y on medical or financial grounds.
Which brings me to my pet hate. Statins.
The true numbers from statin trials
Earlier I said I supported Ben Goldacre in his stand against drug company bribery in our GP clinics, but not everything he says is good news.
A few weeks ago I told you about the dodgy report he had put his name to supporting the wholesale prescription of cholesterol lowering statin drugs to everyone over the age of 40.
I am absolutely against the indiscriminate medication of the general population in this way, but the drug pushers say that the science shows that anyone with a greater than 10% risk of a cardiovascular incident will benefit from daily statin use.
Of course the first question is ‘how do I know if I have a greater than 10% risk of heart trouble?’
Well if we are to believe the hype, that accounts for all of us over the age of 40, especially if our blood pressure is a bit high, or our cholesterol levels a touch strong or even have blood sugar that occasionally spikes.
Just about everyone then!
Then I listened to a BBC Four programme that put those numbers into context…
…using the simplest of mathematics they showed that even if we did all take statins one person in every 140 would be prevented from having a cardiovascular problem – this is known as the Number Needed To Treat.
Most experts in this area agree that if this number gets above 100 then the justification for a drugs use is questionable – so why are we being urged to take statins then?
Maybe this is further evidence that the companies who stand to gain are working in more devious ways once again.
Ray Collins
The Good Life Letter
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This often heartbreaking account by Carol, whose son, Paul, was born with disabilities including autism, is told with the honesty and sincerity necessary to portray the conflicting emotions faced by any family, and particularly a mother, in such circumstances. The feelings of guilt and failure, envy of other mothers with ‘normal’ children, and feelings of bitterness and inadequacy have to be resolved to enjoy a happy family life.
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