Merck now under criminal investigation by the Justice Department for Vioxx Scandal

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Merck now under criminal investigation by the Justice Department for Vioxx

Scandal JoAnn Guest Apr 10, 2005 10:21 PDT

 

http://www.newstarget.com/003068.html

 

Pharmaceutical giant Merck is now under scrutiny by the Justice

Department, which has begun a criminal investigation into the firm’s

marketing of the painkiller Vioxx (withdrawn from the market on

September 30, 2004). Since that time, the Vioxx scandal has expanded

thanks in part to the publication of internal Merck e-mails by the Wall

Street Journal. These e-mails showed that Merck was apparently aware of

the dangers of Vioxx several years ago and yet attempted to construct

clinical studies to obscure those dangers in an effort to continue

marketing these drugs to the general public.

 

 

 

It's becoming clear now that some people at Merck were aware of the

dangers of this drug, and yet they continued to push the drug anyway.

Vioxx was marketed as a safe drug and was ultimately taken by as many as

20 million Americans before finally being recalled.

 

I have called for a criminal investigation of Merck and key FDA decision

makers because these actions are, in my opinion, worse than white-collar

crimes like those committed by Enron executives. These crimes by

pharmaceutical companies and FDA regulators result in the death and

injury of American citizens. Hopefully the Justice Department will send

a strong message with the criminal indictment of Merck executives and

FDA decision makers who were involved in what increasingly appears to be

a conspiracy to conceal the negative side effects of Vioxx while the

drug was heavily promoted and sold.

 

In a report filed by FDA researcher David Graham on November 2nd, it was

revealed that Vioxx may have contributed to almost 28,000 heart attacks

and deaths over the past five years. In response to all of this, the FDA

has humorously announced that it's going to investigate itself and find

out if it did anything wrong. It also said it will stop censoring its

own scientists.

 

These statements, coming from an agency that seems sworn to protect the

profits of the pharmaceutical industry, seem laughable. No one who is

familiar with the facts surrounding this case and the ongoing behavior

of the FDA is going to be fooled by such promises. What this is showing

is the grand failure of the FDA and the whole system of drug approval

and post-approval safety. It's showing that we as a nation are literally

killing our own citizens with toxic chemicals that are approved by a

corrupt agency that approves drugs based on distorted clinical trials

and the suppression of negative evidence or information, including

suppressing the free speech of scientists, researchers and outspoken

physicians who are trying to warn people about the dangers of these

drugs.

 

For many years, I have described this system as a drug racket and until

recently I had received quite a bit of negative feedback about calling

it that. But now, suddenly, it's quite clear to nearly everyone that we

are witnessing a racket. This is being operated almost exactly like a

criminal organization for which laws like the RICO Act were originally

designed. This is a modern version of Al Capone, except instead of

carrying pistols, his gang is carrying prescription drugs and rubber

stamps that say " FDA approved. "

 

Clearly, it is time to dismantle the FDA and reform it from the ground

up. The FDA needs to be a regulatory body that actually regulates

industries rather than promoting their financial interests. This should

be common sense, but it has been long forgotten in the United States

during the rush for corporate greed and shareholder profits.

 

But people like New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer have not

forgotten these principles. And it is in fact Mr. Spitzer who is partly

involved in the investigations against Merck. This is a man not to be

taken lightly. He is, in my opinion, a true hero of law enforcement and

he may yet take on Merck and other pharmaceutical giants to prove that

even corporate kings cannot exploit the U.S. public for financial gain

and get away with it for very long.

 

What I would like to see from all of this is justice served. There needs

to be justice for the criminal actions committed by drug companies and

the FDA. There needs to be justice for the potentially tens of thousands

of people who were harmed or killed by the marketing of a drug that

Merck knew was dangerous. There needs to be justice that questions the

corporate philosophy that profits must be generated at all costs, no

matter who is harmed in the process. For too long in the pharmaceutical

industry, there has been an emphasis on making money regardless of the

consequences. It's the Enron mentality, but now we're playing with

lives, not just retirement funds.

 

It has all gone on far too long and it goes far beyond just Merck. There

are literally dozens of pharmaceutical companies that are, right now,

engaged in similar behavior. They are heavily promoting toxic drugs.

They are burying negative evidence. They are distorting and exaggerating

the benefits of these drugs. They are altering the results of clinical

trials. They're ghostwriting scientific papers that are published in the

names of other physicians. They are refusing to disclose the financial

relationship between their own companies and the authors or physicians

or industry groups that promote the interests of pharmaceutical

companies. And the list goes on.

 

We've just learned, in fact, that Eli Lilly was apparently aware that

its Prozac drug caused violent behavior and suicides thanks to shocking

documents revealed in the British Medical Journal that have -- get this

-- been missing for ten years. These documents, of course, have been

buried for a decade.

 

This kind of corruption is so deeply rooted in American culture and

throughout the conventional medical industry that the unraveling of it

is going to take some time. But it will be time well spent, because in

the end, we may have a system of medicine in this country that actually

focuses on disease prevention. A system of medicine that teaches

nutrition (see related ebook on nutrition) to doctors, that puts

responsibility of health on patients and doesn't promise miracle cures

in the shape of overly-priced pharmaceutical that, by the way, just

might kill you even if used as directed.

 

And if you think about it, the drug industry in the United States has

killed far more Americans than any terrorists group or all the murders

and industrial accidents combined. The pharmaceutical industry is the

third leading cause of death in this country, and that's according to

the Journal of the American Medical Association. First there's cancer,

second there's heart disease and third pharmaceuticals.

 

This is an industry that causes more pain, suffering and fatalities than

any other industry in the country or in the world. It dwarfs the

destruction caused by Big Tobacco. It is, indeed, Big Pharma, and it

represents the very worst evils of society: corporate greed combined

with bad medicine. And starting right now, the Justice Department and

heroic defenders of the public good like Eliot Spitzer, Sidney Wolfe and

Dr. David Graham now stand a chance to bring this evil empire to its

knees. And should we be lucky enough as citizens of this society,

someday we shall be free of this scourge of companies we now call " Big

Pharma. "

 

 

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JoAnn Guest

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