Little background image which was part of my presentation notes. Very scattered, to lazy to really re-write it.:
Pfizer is the, self proclaimed, “world’s largest research-based pharmaceutical company” which “..develops [and] manufactures” many of the prescriptions we are familiar with today. Very recently Pfizer was in the new after being found guilty for fraud. They had to pay a $2.3 billion settlement making it the largest healthcare fraud yet, in addition to their previous three settlements in the past decade.
Pfizer had been illegally promoting four drugs for uses that had not been approved. On of them, the one that our label prescription label shows was for the anti-inflammatory drug, Bextra, used to treat people with arthritis usually as a painkiller.
Though Pfizer settlement only occurred earlier this year, the drug Bextra had been recalled in 2005 because of a rare skin condition and at the urging of the FDA. Before they recalled Bextra, however, Pfizer had pushed to market Bextra beyond its uses and paid reps a $50 bonus if the got doctors to add Bextra to the standard care for patients before and after surgery (claiming they would control pain). The FDA had not approved Bextra for this because they felt the benefits didn’t outweigh the costs, namely that they induced cardiovascular problems like heart attack.
Also, Bextra was only approved at low doses (10 mg once a day or 20 mg twice a day) to relieve minor aches, but Pfizer once again pushed for more serious conditions and at heavier doses which they pushed onto sales reps.
BBC World
http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/15954
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2009/09/pfizer_whistlebloPwer_tells_his.htmlP
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