[Ip-health] Consumers International Report: Drug firms a danger to health

[Ira Glazer]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1806084,00.html

Sarah Boseley, health editor

Monday June 26, 2006


Drug companies are accused today of endangering public health through
widescale marketing malpractices, ranging from covertly attempting to
persuade consumers that they are ill to bribing doctors and
misrepresenting the results of safety and efficacy tests on their products.

In a report that charts the scale of illicit practices by drug companies
in the UK and across Europe, Consumers International - the world
federation of consumer organisations - says people are not being given
facts about the medicines they take because the companies hide the
marketing tactics on which they spend billions.

"Irresponsible marketing practices form a serious, persistent and
widespread problem among the entire pharmaceutical industry," says the
report, which analyses the conduct of 20 of the biggest companies, two
of which are British. It calls for tougher government controls and for
the companies to put their house in order.

Scandals such as the withdrawal of Vioxx, a drug to relieve pain and
inflammation in arthritis, show that unethical drug promotion is a
consumer concern, says the report. Merck withdrew the drug in September
2004, but allegedly knew it could increase the chances of heart attacks
and strokes from 2000 and has been accused of manipulating study results
to play down the risk. More than 6,000 lawsuits have been filed against
the company in the United States by people who claim they suffered heart
attacks as a result of the drug, or by their families.

Despite regulatory action against drug companies, the malpractice
continues, says CI. Many people in the UK may feel they are secure
because they trust their doctors to tell them which drug to take, but CI
says there is no room for complacency when drug companies spend twice as
much on marketing as on research - $60bn last year (=A333bn) - but do not
publish information on their drug promotion practices. Of the 20
companies, only Bristol-Myers Squibb provides a marketing code of
conduct to consumers.

"One obvious area of concern is about how the promotion of drugs by the
pharmaceutical companies to doctors can lead to irrational drug use,"
says Richard Lloyd, CI's director general. "There is a lot of evidence
around of malpractice. This report has found that it is still going on
and in a big way and it must be stopped."

More than half the companies looked at were implicated in controversies
regarding their relationships to healthcare professionals between 2001
and 2005, says the report.

The British company AstraZeneca, for instance, has been criticised by
regulatory bodies: it allegedly organised an event to promote its drug
Crestor which included tickets for a musical, and provided flights and
hotels for doctors to attend a conference on bipolar disorder on the
French Riviera. AstraZeneca says all employees must now pass an exam on
its code of conduct.

GlaxoSmithKline, Britain's largest drug manufacturer, is under
investigation by German and Italian authorities for alleged corruption
of doctors - at least 1,600 in Germany and more than 4,000 in Italy,
where the illegal gifts were said to amount to =80228m (=A3156m) from 1999
to 2002. GSK says it has since established marketing codes. New staff
have to pass a test on the code of practice. The report points out that
in 2004, 87 employees were dismissed or agreed to leave the company
voluntarily as a result of breaches of the codes, and that sanctions
such as written warnings were imposed in 109 cases.