[Ip-health] Forbes: On The Cover/Top Stories: Patient Power

[Joana Ramos]

On The Cover/Top Stories
Patient Power
Matthew Herper 08.21.08, 6:00 PM ET
Forbes Magazine dated September 15, 2008

If you are told you have an incurable disease, you might be motivated to
help find a cure.

<snip>

....patient groups with an entrepreneurial bent have become the drug
industry's new power brokers. Medicines for blood and bone cancers have
reached the market faster because of their efforts. A hundred more
patient-group-backed drugs, one-twentieth of all the medicines in
development, are in human clinical trials for Parkinson's, diabetes,
muscular dystrophy and a litany of cancers. These patient power brokers
will give drug companies $90 million this year, 13 times as much as in
2000, according to Thomson CenterWatch, a research firm that analyzes
clinical trials....


<snip>

Some patient groups can take their mission a little too far, or get too
cozy with drugmakers. An analysis in the Journal of the American Medical
Association of 44 groups that argued for the approval of new treatments
at Food & Drug Administration meetings found that 73% received funding
from drug companies. "It has evolved into just another way for the
industry to get its message across," says Peter Lurie of Public Citizen,
which conducted the study. In 2007 the Boston Globe reported that the
Breast Cancer Resource Committee was giving a third of every dollar
raised to its chief executive. Most of the money came from corporate
donors; the group, which no longer has a Web site, spoke out in favor of
silicone breast implants and was quoted in a Pfizer  (nyse: PFE -  news
-  people ) press release....

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Joana Ramos, MSW
Cancer Resources & Advocacy
Seattle WA USA
+1-206-229-2420
http://ramoslink.info/
www.bmtbasics.org