As a defense attorney, you can tell your clients to stop talking to the press and trolling online, but they don’t necessarily have to listen to you. Attorneys for price-hiking pharma bro and Wu-Tang Clan enthusiast Martin Shkreli haven’t been able to keep him quiet, which may be a problem in his trial for securities fraud that begins today. [More]
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Diabetes Patients Sue Drugmakers Over Escalating Insulin Prices
By 1.31.17 — Updated: 2.1.17
Insulin is an essential hormone, and millions of Americans get the insulin that they need to stay alive and healthy from a vial. With insulin prices on the rise, a group of diabetes patients has filed a federal lawsuit against three drug companies, accusing them of carrying out a fraudulent pricing scheme. [More]
Lilly Meets With Diabetes Patients, Starts Discounted Insulin Program
By 12.13.16
Even though injectable vials of insulin have been around for nearly a century, and synthetic insulin for almost 40 years, there is no generic form of the vital diabetes medication. In recent years, the price of insulin has risen sharply, leaving healthcare providers with concerns about patients who can’t afford insulin skipping doses and risking lost limbs and eyesight. Pharma giant Eli Lilly — maker of popular insulin brands Humalog, Humulin, and Basaglar — is now proposing a solution that it believes could make the medication more affordable — but only for some people. [More]
Pfizer To Pay $486M To Settle Lawsuit Over Celebrex, Bextra
By 8.2.16
Pharma giant Pfizer has agreed to pay $486 million to close the books on a decade-long class-action securities lawsuit related to two of the company’s pain relievers, Celebrex and Bextra. [More]
Here’s How AstraZeneca Is Trying To Block Generic Crestor For 7 More Years
By 7.8.16
How long should a drug company be allowed to be the exclusive manufacturer and seller of their product? Crestor, a best-selling statin (cholesterol-lowering drug) that has enjoyed exclusivity for the last 12 years, is due to lose that protection today. AstraZeneca, the maker of Crestor, is fighting that decision, hoping to squeeze a little more time as the drug’s exclusive manufacturer before generics hit the market. [More]
Vicks Accidentally Says It's Been Around For 1,000 Years
By 10.13.11
A typo on the Vicks website makes it look as if Vicks is saying it’s been around for 1,000+ years. Yes, indeed, perhaps what really ended the Dark Ages was the discovery of Vaporub. With it, William the Conqueror’s congestion and coughing from hanging out in musty castles could be relieved and he could get on with the business of invading England and establishing a more unified and stable feudal system of governance. [More]
Adderall Maker Responds To Shortages With Price Hike
By 10.6.11
There’s less off the attention-deficit disorder drug Adderall available to the public than there used to be: some even call it a shortage. The company blames the FDA, which has limited the total amount of the drug manufactured: it is, after all, an amphetamine and a controlled substance. Manufacturer Shire has responded to these limits by… hiking the price and making fewer discounts available to consumers. [More]
Yet Another Tylenol Recall: 2.5 Million Cold Multi-Symptom Nighttime Rapid Release Gelcaps
By 9.1.11
The fifth recall of a Tylenol product this year is “Tylenol Cold Multi-Symptom Nighttime Rapid Release Gelcaps.” McNeil, a division of Johnson & Johnson, a family company, said the caps had “slightly higher than expected” levels of chlorpheniramine ammonio acetate (CPAA). The recall encompasses roughly 2.5 million packages. [More]
Drug Scalpers Target Hospitals
By 8.18.11
The nation is facing a shortage of critical pharmaceuticals. Enter the price gouger. He stockpiles hard to find medications, then turns around and offers to help hospitals solve their prescription drug shortage problems, at 4,533% markup. [More]
Make Sure The Nursing Home Isn't Dosing Grandma Into Submission
By 8.3.11
A pill is just so much easier. Drug ’em up and shut ’em up. Rather than deal with all the individual needs of elderly persons with dementia in their care, some nursing homes are dosing them with powerful antipsychotics. Not only have the folk not received a diagnosis that the medicine was designed to treat, not only does the drug turn them into zombies their families don’t recognize, but the FDA has warned that using antipsychotics on older patients with dementia nearly doubles their risk of death. [More]
Guy Arrested For Posing As Drug Rep To Steal From Samples Cabinet
By 8.3.11
As we all learned from watching Love and Other Drugs, there’s plenty of good reasons to keep drug sales reps out of doctor’s offices. They use persuasion and charisma, and sometimes less savory methods, to get doctors to prescribe the drugs they’re pushing, privileging profits over patients. But rather than just be worried about what they’re putting on the doctor’s shelves, doctors should be also worried about what the salespeople might be taking off. That’s the case with a man who was arrested in Northport, New York, for posing as a drug sales rep and then stealing meds from the sample cabinet. [More]
Juvies Dosing Kids With Schizophrenia Meds To Keep Them Docile
By 8.3.11
An investigative report found that New Orleans juvenile detention centers are giving the kids potent antipsychotics four times as often as the conditions for which they were designed to treat, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, actually show up in the inmate population. People inside the system say the jails are dosing the kids because it’s easier to deal with them when they’re “little zombies.” [More]
If I Hadn't Checked, CVS Would Have Charged $228 For A $28 Generic
By 6.22.11
Had David’s wife not probed closely, she could have ended up paying $228 for generic Fosamax that could have been easily gotten for $24. He’s sharing the story as a cautionary tale so that other people who are getting their maintenance prescriptions covered by their employer’s insurance don’t end up overpaying for generics. [More]
Walgreens "Sorry" They Gave Patient 10x Recommended Dosage
By 6.15.11
She was hit with incredible pain and muscle spasms in her chest so bad that Arizona woman thought she was going to die. The strike was so severe she would turn red and purple. Sometimes she would have a hundred of these attacks each day, each time thinking that this would be the one that would kill her. Now Walgreens tells ABC15 that they’re “sorry” for refilling her prescription with 50mcg pills. She was only supposed to get 5mcg ones. [More]
$10M Awarded After Child Got Skin Burns On 85% Of Body After Taking Motrin
By 5.27.11
A jury has awarded the family of a child $10 million after she developed skin burns on 85% of her body after taking Children’s Motrin. [More]
It Takes 12.5 Million Spams To Sell $100 Of Viagra
By 5.26.11
Considering how insistent and persistent the emails are, you would think there was big bucks in pushing pills that increase the flow of blood to one’s penis for an extended period of time. That may be true, but only because the costs of spam advertising are so low, as revealed by this nugget in a New York Times article that reveals it takes 12.5 million spam emails just to sell $100 worth of Viagra. [More]
Ex-Girlfriend Auctions Off Sheen's Inscribed Consumer Reports Drug Reference Book
By 3.11.11
Charlie Sheen is a prolific, and apparently, very informed consumer of substances. In a recent Inside Edition interview, his former girlfriend Ginger Lynn brought out a copy of publishing pal Consumer Reports book The Complete Drug Reference that he inscribed and gave to her when they were dating back in the early 90’s. It reads, “To Ging, From one Druggie To Another. Love, C.” The book is going for $1,000 but that’s silly, you can get all the prescription drug information you need at Consumer Reports Health, and you don’t even need to be an extra-dimensional warlock to use it. [More]
HCG Diet Products Are Fraud, Says FDA
By 1.24.11
There are tons of diet pill pages on the internet prosthelytizing the wonders of the miracle diet drug HCG, or “human chorionic gonadotropin.” You have the usual “before” and “after” pictures where you get to play that fun game of trying to figure out if they’re actually two different people, and the promises of losing 30 pounds in 4 weeks. Only problem is that HCG doesn’t work for weight loss, and an FDA exec says they may even be illegal and fraudulent. Quelle surprise! [More]
