[Ip-health] Abbott tampering with safety concerns on wikipedia

[Gaelle Krikorian]

Abbott, really shameless on all fronts.

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Patients not Patents, Inc.
1712 Eye Street, NW Suite 915, Washington, DC 20006
www.PatientsNotPatents.org
Phone -- 202.277.6213  Fax - 202.223.5318
jeff@patientsnotpatents.org

PRESS RELEASE
CONTACT: Jeffrey Light | Phone: 202-277-6213

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
   ABBOTT LABORATORIES DELETES SAFETY CONCERNS FROM WEB
   Washington, D.C., August 29, 2007 - Newly available data show that
employees
of Abbott Laboratories have been altering entries to Wikipedia, the
popular
online encyclopedia, to eliminate information questioning the safety
of its
top-selling drugs.

   In July of 2007, a computer at Abbott Laboratories' Chicago office
was used to
delete a reference to a Mayo Clinic study that revealed that patients
taking the
arthritis drug Humira faced triple the risk of developing certain
kinds of
cancers and twice the risk of developing serious infections.  The
study was
published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2006.

   The same computer was used to remove articles describing public
interest
groups' attempt to have Abbott's weight-loss drug Meridia banned
after the drug
was found to increase the risk of heart attack and stroke in some
patients.

   The site's editors restored the deleted information, but Abbott's
activities
illustrate drug companies' eagerness to suppress safety concerns,
said Jeffrey
Light, Executive Director of the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy
group Patients
not Patents. "The argument that drug companies can be trusted to provide
adequate safety information on their own products has been used by the
pharmaceutical industry to fight against government regulation of
consumer
advertising.  Clearly such trust is misplaced.  As Abbott's actions have
demonstrated, drug companies will attempt to hide unfavorable safety
information
when they think nobody is watching."

   The changes are part of over one thousand edits made from
computers at
Abbott's offices. The data was obtained from WikiScanner, an
independent site
that allows users to look up anonymous changes to Wikipedia articles.
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