Inteview by Peter Jennings with some doctors about medicines
- From: J <studras@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 16:49:05 -0500
http://www.dontevergiveup.com/abc_story.htm
Date unknown - probably 2002 (first time posted, elsewhere, according to
the archives)
ABC NEWS SPECIAL REPORT
With Peter Jennings
Bitter Medicine: Pills, Profit and the Public Health
Peter Jennings ? ?Dr. Drummond Rennie is an editor at The Journal of the
American Medical Association. He says researchers who are critical get
attacked all the time.
Do you actually believe, Dr. Rennie, that drug companies are intent on
keeping the consumer on drugs, which are not as good as older drugs, for
the simple requirement of profit?
Dr. Drummond Rennie ? Yes. Yes, very much so. Absolutely. ?.They?ve got to
be prevented.
Peter Jennings ? ? The top 10 drug companies combined made profits of more
than $37 billion in the year 2001. And you, the taxpayer, are subsidizing
research that benefits the drug industry.
?Nancy Chockley runs an institute funded by managed care organizations?
Nancy Chockley ? What we found is that over the last 12 years, that
there?s really been a shift in the type of new drugs being approved by the
FDA. And that we found that most of the growth was really in drugs that
did not show any significant clinical improvement.
Peter Jennings ? Eighty percent of the drugs which the FDA approves are
not significantly different from the ones on the market already, and only
20 percent of the drugs are significantly new. Do you think the public
even knows that? ?We?re spending more on prescription drugs than we did in
1995. And the majority of the drugs approved by the FDA are simply
modifications of old drugs?Consumers spend $90 billion more on
prescription drugs last year than was spent just six years ago. And are we
$90 billion healthier? ?But what critics call this ?gaming of the system?
may have a much more damaging result.
Dr. Sharon Levine, Kaiser Permanente Medical Group - If I?m a
manufacturer, and I can change one molecule and get another 20 years of
patent life and convince physicians to prescribe and consumers to demand ?
then why would I be spending money on a lot less certain endeavor, which
is looking for brand new drugs?
Peter Jennings ? The pharmaceutical industry has more registered lobbyists
than the number of senators and congressmen combined.
Dr. Jerry Avorn, Brigham and Women?s Hospital ? I think there?s a sense
that, for example, when the FDA approves a drug, everything that needs to
be known about it is known. I think patients believe that. I think doctors
sometimes believe that. And that is not true.
Peter Jennings ? How do you explain the overwhelming success of these
drugs in a very short period of time?
Dr. Sharon Levine ? I think the only explanation is the amount of money,
the amount of time and energy that was put into promoting these drugs to
doctors and advertising these drugs to consumers.
Peter Jennings ? You see television ads like this all the time, including
many on ABC News programs. They are part of the drug industry?s $15
billion effort to get you to ask for particular drugs and to get doctors
to prescribe those particular drugs. ?The drug companies spend vast
amounts of money ? nearly $3 billion selling to consumers, $5 billion
marketing to doctors, $8 billion worth of free samples. ?Doesn?t it make
sense for the drug companies to at least educate the doctors about the
prescription drugs that are available?
Dr. Marcia Angell ? Well, that?s not their business, education. Drug
companies are not in the education business. Medical schools and teaching
hospitals are. It?s like expecting beer companies to educate people about
alcoholism. It is not what they do.
Dr. Matt Handley, Group Health Cooperative ? It?s almost like a trade. You
might not have the stomach problem, but the studies suggest you might,
instead, be equally likely to have a more serious heart problem. ?I would
personally wait years for long-term safety from the FDA?s monitoring
program before I?d consider taking them. If they were free, I would do
that same thing.
Peter Jennings ? What does this say about the social responsibility of the
pharmaceutical industry? Or is the pharmaceutical industry supposed to
have a social responsibility?
Dr. Sharon Levine ? That?s a very good question that the American people
need to answer, do we want to entrust critical elements of the public
health to an industry whose purpose, whose mission is to earn return for
shareholders?
Peter Jennings ? Congress has never required the FDA to routinely compare
new drugs with older drugs. This is costing consumers billions of dollars
that we do not need to spend. And in some cases, it could be costing
lives. ?There is no law that says new drugs have to be proven 100 percent
safe. ? The government says they must be relatively safe, which means that
every drug comes with risks. And the result of that is that sometimes new
drugs turn out to be more dangerous than old drugs.
Dr. Jerry Avorn, Harvard Medical School - If patients were aware of the
limitations that all of us physicians have in terms of what we know and
what we wish we know and what we don?t know, they would be more scared
than they are at present. ?The saying that a lot of doctors use sometimes
in jest is, ?Always wait a year before prescribing a new drug. And if it?s
for a family member, wait five years.? And that?s an awful thing to say,
but it reveals a perception that we really don?t know as much as we would
like to know about a drug until it?s been around. INSERT: In other words,
tested on the public. ...So, the assumption that there?s somehow this wide
body of knowledge that, A, exists and, B, is at the tip of our tongues
when we write a prescription is actually a false sense of security.
Peter Jennings ? The fact is, drugs can be used for years before we really
know how safe they are. ?Dr. Drummond Rennie is an editor at The Journal
of the American Medical Association. He says researchers who are critical
get attacked all the time. Why do you think the industry is able to get
away with what you have in the past called ?bullying tactics??
Dr. Drummond Rennie, Journal of the American Medical Association ? Money.
Because if the shareholders are happy, whom else do they have to answer
for? These are multinationals. They have no masters.
Peter Jennings ? Can we trust studies funded by companies that have a
vested interest in the results? ?Will the pharmaceutical industry do
whatever it takes to get the results it wants from research?
Dr. Drummond Rennie ? The temptation to spin those results is always
there, and it?s frequently used. Frequently.
Peter Jennings ? For nearly every drug on the market, doctors must wrestle
with conflicting and sometimes inaccurate information.
Dr. Drummond Rennie ? If only the good news about a drug is published, and
never the bad news, then a false impression is given of the quality,
effectiveness of that drug. It may be entirely false.
Peter Jennings - Does the drug industry, on occasion or regularly,
suppress data?
Dr. Drummond Rennie ? Oh, we suspect, and rather know, that this happens
all the time.
Peter Jennings - Does the drug industry ever suspend a trial ? a drug
trial ? because it believes the results will be different than it wishes?
Dr. Drummond Rennie ? Yes, that?s happened.
Peter Jennings ? Does a drug company ever not publish the results of a
trial because it doesn?t like the results?
Dr. Drummond Rennie ? Yes.
Peter Jennings ? Do you actually believe, Dr. Rennie, that drug companies
are intent on keeping the consumer on drugs, which are not as good as
older drugs, for the simple requirement of profit?
Dr. Drummond Rennie ? Yes. Yes, very much so. Absolutely. ? They?ve got to
be prevented.
Peter Jennings ? There is one last thing this evening which we believe is
important for all of us. The questions about what we are getting for our
money cannot and must not be answered only by the drug companies.
Virtually everyone we talked to for this broadcast agrees on that. The
rules by which this hugely profitable industry operates do not always
serve consumers adequately. And nothing is going to happen, no matter how
angry consumers get, unless the Congress and the president decide that the
time is come. The country can do better. I?m Peter Jennings. Thank you for
joining us. Good night.
.
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