Consumer Law

Creepy Drug Company Experiments, Which Kill People and/or Medicare Gets Charged

By Joe Consumer

Today I would like to begin by reprinting the lead in two incredible stories: one in the current edition of Vanity Fair (January 2011) and the other in the New York Times. 

First, Vanity Fair, in a piece called  ?Deadly Medicine":

Prescription drugs kill some 200,000 Americans every year. Will that number go up, now that most clinical trials are conducted overseas?on sick Russians, homeless Poles, and slum-dwelling Chinese?in places where regulation is virtually nonexistent, the F.D.A. doesn?t reach, and ?mistakes? can end up in pauper?s graves? The authors investigate the globalization of the pharmaceutical industry, and the U.S. Government?s failure to rein in a lethal profit machine.

My attempt to try to describe what is going on with these Mengele-like experiments run by U.S. drug companies, including on babies from impoverished countries, many of whom are killed, is above my pay grade so please read this incredible investigative piece on your own.  It?s important to you, Americans, because ?the 20 largest U.S.-based pharmaceutical companies now conduct one-third of their clinical trials exclusively at foreign sites.?

Now, here?s the Times:

Word quickly reached top executives at Abbott Laboratories that a Baltimore cardiologist, Dr. Mark Midei, had inserted 30 of the company?s cardiac stents in a single day in August 2008, ?which is the biggest day I remember hearing about,? an executive wrote in a celebratory e-mail.

Two days later, an Abbott sales representative spent $2,159 to buy a whole, slow-smoked pig, peach cobbler and other fixings for a barbecue dinner at Dr. Midei?s home, according to a report being released Monday by the Senate. The dinner was just a small part of the millions in salary and perks showered on Dr. Midei for putting more stents in more patients than almost any other cardiologist in Baltimore.

The Midei/Abbot story first broke in the Baltimore Sun (we covered it here), after which the Senate started investigating, resulting today in a 170-page report.  See the Sun article today, describing the report to find ?'a clear example of potential fraud, waste and abuse,' noting that St. Joseph billed government and private insurers more than $6.6 million for the procedures.?

The Sun also notes, "Midei, who earned more than $1 million in annual salary at St. Joseph, was among the Towson hospital's most prominent physicians, well-respected in the field of interventional cardiology. He is accused of placing stents in hundreds of people whose medical records suggest that they didn't need them, and faces potentially hundreds of civil lawsuits based on the allegations."

(Read the Sun for more juicy details.)

Dr. Steven Nissen, chief of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic who says ?he routinely treats patients who have been given multiple unneeded stents,? told the Times, ?What was going on in Baltimore is going on right now in every city in America. We?re spending a fortune as a country on procedures that people don?t need.?

When are we going to stop blaming injured patients for the high cost of medical care, and trying to reduce deficits on their backs?

Full post as published by ThePopTort on December 06, 2010 (boomark / email).