Looking For a Job in Pharma? Get Ready for a Headache!

[Guest guest]

Looking For a Job in Pharma? Get Ready for a Headache!

by Martha Rosenberg

_http://www.opednews.com/articles/Looking-For-a-Job-in-Pharm-by-Martha-Rosenbe

rg-090325-610.html_

(http://www.opednews.com/articles/Looking-For-a-Job-in-Pharm-by-Martha-Rosenberg\

-090325-610.html)

 

 

When college grads don their gowns and mortarboards this June, hopefully

they won't be dreaming about jobs pertaining to mortar and pestles. Pharma is

melting down as badly as Wall Street--and for the same reasons!

 

Think about it.

 

Toxic assets? Unsafe drugs. Ponzi schemes? Safety studies that were never

there to begin with. Indecent profits footed by taxpayers? Medicaid fraud and

" patent drugs. " Mayday mergers? Pfizer/Wyeth; Merck/Schering-Plough. New

" business models " ? Biologics and vaccines.

 

In fact while the nation gasps at AIG and Freddie losses, pharma is running

a strong second with Merck paying out $4.85 billion for Vioxx, Pfizer $2.3

billion for Bextra (and $430 million for Neurontin) and Lilly $1.4 billion for

Zyprexa.

 

After this month*s Wyeth vs.. Levine Supreme Court ruling, settlements over

fen phen, Baycol, Vytorin, Ketek, Avandia, Bextra, Celebrex, Prempro,

Premarin, Zyprexa, Risperdal, Seroquel, Lexapro, Celexa, Cymbalta, Fosamax,

Boniva,

Effexor, Lyrica, Geodon, (pant, pant), Ablify, Zoloft, Paxil, Prozac,

Chantix, Singulair, Ambien and Trovan should be forthcoming.

 

Of course you can blame the Bush Administration's friendster FDA packed with

industry vets who waved their buddies' new drugs through after six week

trials for the iffy drugs on the market. You can blame ghostwriters, " bought "

doctors and direct to consumer disease advertising for getting them in medicine

cabinets and on formularies.

 

But it*s the public that asks itself do I have Restless Legs Syndrome,

Social Phobia, Fibromyalgia and Nonrestful Sleep? (see no money down; no doc;

no

income verification home mortgages.)

 

Still, the days when pharma reps would drive up to the state mental hospital

and just ask for the order--like the Pfizer reps who made over 200 visits to

Western State Hospital in Tacoma, WA in four years where 118 prescriptions

of controversial Geodon are written a day--are over.

 

Gone are the days when reps could just slide by the nursing home to see how

their Seroquel, Risperdal and Zyprexa scripts were doing--elderly warning

label notwithstanding--or collect their Post Traumatic Stress Disorder veteran

**dividend** from psychoactive drugs for combat and after combat.

 

Gone are the antipsychotic and SSRI **deficiencies** of the poor, mentally

challenged and children on Medicaid now that the drugs are causing diabetes

and the states are suing. Oops.

 

Few third party payers and benefits managers are falling for the patent drug

two step anymore including the--drum roll please--Once A Week version and

the Time Release version. And even pharma's pork to universities--the

embarrassing " continuing medical education " courses that **teach** doctors

their sales

pitch--are under the ethical microscope.

 

No, whereas, drug reps once had their own room at the doctor*s office to put

up their pin striped pant legs and waltzed in in front of waiting patients,

**No Drug Reps** signs now appear.

 

Just when the public was forgetting that Merck/Schering-Plough*s miracle

cholesterol drug Vytorin was worthless and maybe harmful; that Merck*s bone

drug

Fosamax sometimes fractured the bones it was supposed to strengthen and

causes esophagus cancer and osteonecrosis, just when people were forgetting

that

Wyeth*s hormone drug Prempro causes breast cancer, new subterfuge surfaces.

 

In February, New York-based Forest Laboratories was charged with illegally

marketing antidepressants Celexa and Lexapro, burying a damning FDA study and

paying Dr. Jeffrey Bostic, director of school psychiatry at Massachusetts

General Hospital, $750,000 a year to promote illegal pediatric drug uses in US

District Court in Boston.

 

In March, London-based AstraZeneca was charged with lying about atypical

antipsychotic Seroquel*s diabetic side effects in US District Court for the

Middle District of Florida in Orlando and disseminating research about

Seroquel*s

**safety** by two women who were having affairs with its US Medical Director

for Seroquel, Dr. Wayne MacFadden.

 

Surprise! They are looking for jobs too.

 

(http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm)