Another Doctor on Big Pharma’s Payroll

When Dr. Victor Tapson, a Duke University researcher, wrote the Food and Drug Administration urging that the agency delay the approval of a generic blood thinner, it was a recommendation that carried some clout. Tapson, after all, was writing on behalf of the American College of Chest Physicians. But now it seems Tapson has some explaining to do. A Senate Finance Committee report released last week found that Tapson was on the payroll of a pharmaceutical company that was trying to protect its profits by blocking the release of a generic rival. POGO Investigator Paul Thacker explains how Tapson was part of a major lobbying push by drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis. Link

Pfizer: No More Free Lunch in Sandwich

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/mar/23/budget-2011-sandwich-pfizer-jobs

The residents of Sandwich, where the pharmaceutical company Pfizer is soon to close its research and development facility – with a loss of 2,400 jobs – will be watching to see how that pledge materialises over the next few months. Viagra was made, created, designed and invented here; new drugs will not be.

Pharmalot: FDA May Prosecute More Pharmaceutical Execs

By Ed Silverman // March 4th, 2010 //
The FDA plans to increase misdemeanor prosecutions of industry execs as it looks to refocus its Office of Criminal Investigations (see this letter to the Senate Finance committee). The move comes in response to a new report from the General Accountability Office that the OCI suffers from lax oversight, despite increased in funding and staffing over the past decade. In fact, the FDA hasn’t reviewed most OCI offices in more than three years. The OCI investigates counterfeit drugs and other bad stuff, as well as misconduct by FDA employees.
The GAO concluded the FDA “has relied largely on the OCI director to determine which aspects of OCI’s operations and investigations are made known to FDA’s top management.” The GAO found assessments of six OCI field offices aren’t being done on a timely basis. Of 24 total office assessments that should have been completed by August 2009, only 7, or about 30 percent, were completed and one office hadn’t been assessed in over 10 years.

Continues at Link
Thanks, Ed!

Ah, but... who is watching the watchers?

NAMI: Pharma Companies are its biggest donors

"Drug Makers Are Advocacy Group’s Biggest Donors

By GARDINER HARRIS
Published: October 21, 2009
WASHINGTON — A majority of the donations made to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one of the nation’s most influential disease advocacy groups, have come from drug makers in recent years, according to Congressional investigators.

The alliance, known as NAMI, has long been criticized for coordinating some of its lobbying efforts with drug makers and for pushing legislation that also benefits industry.

Last spring, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, sent letters to the alliance and about a dozen other influential disease and patient advocacy organizations asking about their ties to drug and device makers. The request was part of his investigation into the drug industry’s influence on the practice of medicine.

The mental health alliance, which is hugely influential in many state capitols, has refused for years to disclose specifics of its fund-raising, saying the details were private.

But according to investigators in Mr. Grassley’s office and documents obtained by The New York Times, drug makers from 2006 to 2008 contributed nearly $23 million to the alliance, about three-quarters of its donations."

New York Times Link

Search for "grassley" to see our previous posts on this matter; here is one -
http://pharmaceuticalsanonymous.blogspot.com/2009/05/most-nami-money-is-from-psychiatric.html

Some day NAMI will have an interesting section at Little Sis.

NYT: Democrats say no to cost cap for drug manufacturers

Botox in the deal
for Nancy?









"Ms. Pelosi, many House and Senate Democrats and most of the administration’s liberal allies had assumed that the $80 billion was more of a starting point than a firm commitment.

“We know we can squeeze more from the system,” Ms. Pelosi told a Washington Post blogger a few weeks ago. “The minute the drug companies settled for $80 billion, we knew it was $160 billion.”

“The president made the agreements he made,” she added. “And maybe we’ll be limited by that. But maybe not!”

After Mr. Waxman’s committee approved a House bill last Friday allowing government negotiation of drug prices and requiring additional price rebates, the drug lobbyists began demanding public reassurances from the White House — until Jim Messina, the deputy chief of staff, confirmed the lobbyists’ understanding of the deal in a Wednesday night e-mail message. (A White House spokesman said Thursday that the confirmation was unrelated to the lobbyists’ pressure.)"

LINK

UPDATES: William Greider in The Nation says this deal stinks.
Huffington Post reveals an internal memo about deals the White House cut with Pharma.

Bees: Colony Collapse Disorder Cause and Cure Found

This is great news and we are delighted to pass it on to you.

"A new study published in the journal Environmental Microbiology Reports may clarify things, as a team of Spanish researchers report the cause of the colony collapse disorder, and also suggest a cure. The researchers isolated the parasitic fungi Nosema ceranae from a pair of Spanish apiaries, while finding none of the other proposed causes—Varroa destructor, IAPV, or pesticides. With the identification of the invading pathogen, the team treated other diseased colonies with fumagillin—an antibiotic—and observed a complete recovery of the colony.

Honeybees play a key role in horticulture as they are significant pollinators of fruit, crops, and wild flowers. They are indispensable to many sustainable agriculture farms, so keeping them healthy is of great concern. While they are important, other research has suggested using wild bees—those that are solitary cavity- or soil-nesting insects—as opposed to large colonies of honey bees, can result in successful pollination as well."

Get more of the buzz here.