Summary of John Abramson's Sickening

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The author was sent a heartbreaking note from a woman who had seen her on television discussing safety issues associated with Vioxx and Celebrex, two widely used pain relievers. She asked if she could review her daughter’s medical records.
#2 As the Palmer family struggled with their loss, one of the world’s largest drug companies was dealing with a crisis of its own. On September 30, 2004, Merck pulled its blockbuster Vioxx off the market.
#3 The two articles that defended Vioxx were published in the world’s most prestigious medical journal, the NEJM. But when I read the fine print, I was shocked to discover that both authors had financial ties to Merck.
#4 I realized that the information in the NEJM could not be trusted. I searched for the data behind an article I’d read in the Washington Post, which reported that a JAMA article claiming to show that Celebrex caused fewer serious GI complications than older over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs was also based on a misrepresentation.

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 19 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669354659
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on John Abramson's Sickening
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The author was sent a heartbreaking note from a woman who had seen her on television discussing safety issues associated with Vioxx and Celebrex, two widely used pain relievers. She asked if she could review her daughter’s medical records.

#2

As the Palmer family struggled with their loss, one of the world’s largest drug companies was dealing with a crisis of its own. On September 30, 2004, Merck pulled its blockbuster Vioxx off the market.

#3

The two articles that defended Vioxx were published in the world’s most prestigious medical journal, the NEJM. But when I read the fine print, I was shocked to discover that both authors had financial ties to Merck.

#4

I realized that the information in the NEJM could not be trusted. I searched for the data behind an article I’d read in the Washington Post, which reported that a JAMA article claiming to show that Celebrex caused fewer serious GI complications than older over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs was also based on a misrepresentation.

#5

The FDA had sent a warning letter to Merck in September 2001, calling their marketing of Vioxx misleading. The company continued to purchase hundreds of thousands of reprints of the NEJM article and hand them out to doctors, repeating the same marketing claims that the FDA had expressly forbidden them to make.

#6

The COX-2 hypothesis states that older anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen and naproxen work by suppressing a single enzyme, cyclooxygenase, which catalyzes a cascade of events leading to inflammation. However, these drugs have the unfortunate tendency to cause stomach symptoms and, occasionally, serious GI complications like bleeding or perforated ulcers.

#7

I was invited to speak at a Harvard Medical School-sponsored Continuing Medical Education program about the risks of Vioxx, and the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine were present. I was apprehensive about how they would react to my lecture.

#8

I had thought that the fundamental purpose of academic institutions was to seek the truth, but I was shocked to learn that the NEJM did not have an obligation to its physician readers to correct any misinformation reported in its pages.

#9

I gave a speech about the erosion of trust in clinical knowledge and in particular the role the NEJM played in the Vioxx debacle. I looked up into the dark corner of the amphitheater, where two editors from the journal were sitting. I made no changes to avoid potential repercussions from them.

#10

The NEJM issued an Expression of Concern about the VIGOR trial results in December 2005, six months after the Wall Street Journal article that discussed the conversation between the pharmacist and Dr. Drazen. The true purpose of the EOC was to protect Merck from lawsuits related to Vioxx.

#11

The three supposed guardians of public safety who allowed Stacey’s family doctor to reasonably believe that Vioxx was the best choice to treat the girl’s post-concussion headaches were the doctor, the NEJM, and the FDA.

#12

The biggest drug debacle in American history was the Vioxx scandal, in which the financial costs to Merck were significant. In 2007, the company agreed to pay $4. 85 billion to settle civil litigation involving almost twenty-seven thousand plaintiffs who alleged Vioxx caused their heart attacks and strokes.

#13

The use of Neurontin to treat many different conditions was off-label, meaning that it was used to treat a condition that the drug had not been specifically approved to treat. This is common practice, and the marketing of drugs to treat off-label conditions is not illegal.

#14

The trial took place in 2010, and was centered around the drug Neurontin. It was alleged that Pfizer had pushed doctors to use Neurontin to treat bipolar disorder and to prescribe dosages up to twice the FDA-approved maximum for all types of nerve pain, despite the fact that the company’s own science had failed to provide convincing evidence of benefit for these off-label uses.

#15

The trial was about more than just the fraudulent marketing of a single drug. It was about whether drug companies had the right to withhold and misrepresent crucial information about their products and thereby mislead doctors and the public.

#16

The use of Neurontin for bipolar disorder increased fiftyfold between February 1996 and November 1999, despite the fact that three more RCTs found the drug to be no better than placebo. The information presented at these meetings included a recommendation to treat bipolar disorder with Neurontin.

#17

The most damning thing about Pfizer’s presentation of the Young study was that the much larger randomized controlled double-blind Pande study had been completed a year earlier, but its results were not published for two more years.

#18

When doctors attend lectures presented by experts, we assume the information is accurate. However, it is critically important that doctors get a fair and accurate representation of scientific evidence.

#19

To explain how Pfizer marketed Neurontin for the treatment of nerve pain, I had to explain the difference between a randomized controlled trial and an uncontrolled study.