Post by Admin on Mar 28, 2024 14:20:34 GMT
The Crimes of Big Pharma: Why Are We Still Turning a Blind Eye?
BY DR TIM COLES
www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/the-crimes-of-big-pharma-why-are-we-still-turning-a-blind-eye
More than a decade ago, the US drug giant Pfizer was described as a “habitual offender” by the journal, Healthcare Policy. Between 2002 and 2009, the company had forked out $3 billion in civil and criminal penalties.
But Pfizer is far from being the only one. At the end of 2019, the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) fined the UK-based multinational, Mundipharma, more than $300,000 for 24 infringements over the company’s relations with medical professionals in its efforts to promote opioids, which were marketed as TARGIN. “Advertising to health professionals was misleading, imbalanced and otherwise inaccurate,” says the TGA. It was “in breach of the requirements of the Medicines Australia Code of Conduct regarding promotional materials directed to health professionals.” According to TGA guidelines, opioids should not be advertised as a core element of managing non-cancer pain, yet the company’s promotional material did exactly that.
Pharmaceutical giants have a long history of criminal behaviour, some of which involve killing people by selling dangerous products for profit, while others involve killing people by raising prices on life-saving medicine and suing for the production of generics. Regulators tend to give companies a financial slap on the wrist and thus enable them to continue their gangster operations while appearing to take public health seriously. Mundipharma generates an annual $2 billion, so a $300k fine is hardly a deterrent.
Smaller pharmaceutical companies, particularly those developing drugs derived from natural substances and not synthetic chemicals, are receiving comparable fines. In September last year, the TGA fined three domestic firms specialising in cannabinoid-based products: Cannatrek, Little Green Pharma, and MGC Pharmaceuticals, which shares its headquarters with Europe. The companies were accused of promoting prescription-only medical cannabis, including products not on the Register of Therapeutic Goods.
Why are regulators going after natural and natural-based producers? ABC Australia reported on the “secretive relationship” between companies and government advisors, which the report said “is enough to make you sick.” But I thought conspiracies were just a theory and you’d be a fool, a weirdo, and even a menace to society to believe and promote them? In 2012, Bond University’s Ray Moynihan said: “The TGA has confirmed to me there is no public disclosure of the financial relationships between drug companies and the professionals who advise Australia’s drug regulator.” In 2017, Dr Wendy Bonython and Associate Professor Bruce Arnold of Canberra University’s Health Research Institute told the Senate that the TGA needed a complete overhaul. They said: “There needs to be a clear break between the regulator and the parties they’re trying to regulate.” In August last year, the BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) cited professionals who advocated changing the “TGA’s structure and function, arguing that the agency has become too close to industry.”
rest in link
BY DR TIM COLES
www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/the-crimes-of-big-pharma-why-are-we-still-turning-a-blind-eye
More than a decade ago, the US drug giant Pfizer was described as a “habitual offender” by the journal, Healthcare Policy. Between 2002 and 2009, the company had forked out $3 billion in civil and criminal penalties.
But Pfizer is far from being the only one. At the end of 2019, the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) fined the UK-based multinational, Mundipharma, more than $300,000 for 24 infringements over the company’s relations with medical professionals in its efforts to promote opioids, which were marketed as TARGIN. “Advertising to health professionals was misleading, imbalanced and otherwise inaccurate,” says the TGA. It was “in breach of the requirements of the Medicines Australia Code of Conduct regarding promotional materials directed to health professionals.” According to TGA guidelines, opioids should not be advertised as a core element of managing non-cancer pain, yet the company’s promotional material did exactly that.
Pharmaceutical giants have a long history of criminal behaviour, some of which involve killing people by selling dangerous products for profit, while others involve killing people by raising prices on life-saving medicine and suing for the production of generics. Regulators tend to give companies a financial slap on the wrist and thus enable them to continue their gangster operations while appearing to take public health seriously. Mundipharma generates an annual $2 billion, so a $300k fine is hardly a deterrent.
Smaller pharmaceutical companies, particularly those developing drugs derived from natural substances and not synthetic chemicals, are receiving comparable fines. In September last year, the TGA fined three domestic firms specialising in cannabinoid-based products: Cannatrek, Little Green Pharma, and MGC Pharmaceuticals, which shares its headquarters with Europe. The companies were accused of promoting prescription-only medical cannabis, including products not on the Register of Therapeutic Goods.
Why are regulators going after natural and natural-based producers? ABC Australia reported on the “secretive relationship” between companies and government advisors, which the report said “is enough to make you sick.” But I thought conspiracies were just a theory and you’d be a fool, a weirdo, and even a menace to society to believe and promote them? In 2012, Bond University’s Ray Moynihan said: “The TGA has confirmed to me there is no public disclosure of the financial relationships between drug companies and the professionals who advise Australia’s drug regulator.” In 2017, Dr Wendy Bonython and Associate Professor Bruce Arnold of Canberra University’s Health Research Institute told the Senate that the TGA needed a complete overhaul. They said: “There needs to be a clear break between the regulator and the parties they’re trying to regulate.” In August last year, the BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) cited professionals who advocated changing the “TGA’s structure and function, arguing that the agency has become too close to industry.”
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