CIA Adds Fighting Terror To Viagra Labeling
23 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // December 26th, 2008 // 1:16 pm
Could this be considered an unapproved use? A 60-year-old Afghan tribal chief with four younger wives was given a few of the Pfizer impotence pills by a CIA officer, who returned a few days later to find a smiling man ready to divulge info about the Taliban. Wotta deal, eh?
While the CIA has a long history of buying information with cash, the growing Taliban insurgency has prompted the use of novel incentives and creative bargaining to gain support in some of the country’s roughest neighborhoods, according to The Washington Post.
In their efforts to win over notoriously fickle warlords and chieftains, CIA operatives have used a variety of personal services. These include pocketknives and tools, medicine or surgeries for ailing family members, toys and school equipment, tooth extractions, travel visas, and, occasionally, pharmaceutical enhancements for aging patriarchs with slumping libidos, the paper writes.
“Whatever it takes to make friends and influence people - whether it’s building a school or handing out Viagra,” one agency operative and veteran of several Afghanistan tours tells the Post.
The key is to to meet an informant’s personal needs in a way that keeps him firmly on your side but leaves little or no visible trace. “You’re trying to bridge a gap between people living in the 18th century and people coming in from the 21st century,” Jamie Smith, a veteran of CIA covert operations in Afghanistan and now ceo of SCG International, a private security and intelligence firm, tells the Post. “So you look for those common things in the form of material aid that motivate people everywhere.”
Merrill
Ed,
I just wanted to wish you a happy holiday season, and hope that neither of us find ourselves screaming in the new year, like one of the Beatles on “Helter Skelter” (was it John? was it Ringo?) “I’ve got blisters on my fingers!”
best wishes,
Merrill
http://www.gooznews.com
Ed Silverman
Hi Merrill,
Thanks and same to you - on all counts. And it was John Lennon, I believe, who screamed at the end of the song.
Best
ed
pharmavet
Military contracts with drug companies are nothing new. Let’s hope that when Viagra goes generic in a few years, the CIA will get a better deal.
K
So what will they get if they bring in Osama bin Laden?
Tom
Well, “stick ‘em up, warlords!”
Justice in Michigan
“A 60-year-old Afghan tribal chief with four younger wives was given a few of the Pfizer impotence pills by a CIA officer, who returned a few days later to find a smiling man ready to divulge info about the Taliban.”
Look out, CIA. Next time, the KGB will give him four bathtubs and a beach.
Dr. Ann Blake-Tracy
Really bright idea - something the CIA has always been good with! (YES that was definitely sarcasm!)
My question is just what does the CIA plan on doing about the public relations backlash when the chief drops dead of a heart attack from using that Viagra? Although the FDA has not issued the warning it should have issued for Viagra (What’s new?), data indicates the tribal chief now has double the risk of a heart attack of someone on Vioxx thanks to that CIA gift of Viagra!
That’s right. So why did Vioxx and Merck get all the wrongful death suits and bad press over heart attacks while Viagra and Pfizer continue to get away with nothing more than a wink and a nod? Maybe for the same reason Pfizer’s Vioxx clone Celebrex is still on the market?
harpy
And what a positive step forward for improving the lives of women in Afghanistan!
Just A Thought
Viagrtomic weapons of mass reproduction.
atlex
“Dr.” Blake-Tracey,
You’re a real credible source of information. Last I checked you, you received your PhD from an unaccredited college without having to take any courses. Feel free to offer your opinion, just don’t cloak it in the cover of a “PhD” that is no more legitimate than the one my dog could get through the mail. Your data on Viagra is simply incorrect.
Atlex
Salmon
So what are your credentials Atlex? Last I asked you disappeared pretty quick.
The poster has an opinion. Rather than attack the opinion or bring any data you attack the poster.
Now I don’t know how to evaluate the poster’s opinion. However, the FDA has a history of simply not reporting safety information. Not only that but they have a history of finding ways to fire reviewers like myself for raising safety issues and then finding a way to bring dangerous drugs onto the market and then delaying reporting anything about the adverse events that do occur.
Personally I think all this recent talk about Bob Powell and using computer models to evaluate potential cardiac toxicity of drugs under development is really just a mechanism to commit fraud. Especially since in my opinion it’s simply impossible for the company Entelos to have the data that they would need to make accurate predictions based on certain mechanisms and certain populations. That’s my opinion but then I only had access to what was actually occurring with drug approvals and the hold ups in meeting PDUFA goal dates inside the FDA.
By the way I have multiple doctorates and each one was from the number 1 program in the US based on objective data (NIH research grants, publications, etc.). I’ve also had more formal clinical, didactic, and research training on drugs and their clinical effects than any other person I’ve ever met plus I’ve more hands on experience with FDA reviews than most people including identifying multiple drugs and their lethal mechansims. So anyone who says or writes I’m unqualified to make a judgement on safety issues like this better think twice.
Matt
The CIA has always used drugs against its percieved opponents. This is just an unusual instance of how they used drugs to accomplish something.
Justice in Michigan
Atlex - Genuine question - For, say, a guy Bob Dole’s age, what is the risk of MI relative to placebo on Viagra? I assume the “war lords” will more likely look like Bob Dole than, say, Sean Penn.
atlex
Salmon, I have never tried to pass myself off as anything but a non-medical professional who works in the pharma industry. Of course, anyone’s opinion is welcome. My point is that someone with fake credentials shouldn’t use those credentials to add weight or gravitas to their opinion.
Justice, as for your question, I believe that the post-marketing reports for all of these ED drugs have included a wide variety of reports of CV incidents. However, I don’t think there’s been any causality relationship established since the same patients who have ED tend also to have some CVD and are already at an increased risk of an MI. And, the contention that “data indicates the tribal chief now has double the risk of a heart attack of someone on Vioxx” is simply not consistent with the literature. Of course, if one of the tribal leaders dies after taking Viagra, at least he’ll die with a smile on his face.
Atlex
Salmon
Atlex,
You still haven’t answered my question as to what your credentials are and the type of position you have and what work you do.
You criticized someone for having a doctoral level degree without attending classes. So what. People who get Ph.D.s in the UK don’t take classes it’s pure lab work. In fact I know someone who got a Ph.D. in Pharmacology here in the US for doing a few simple experiments in rats part-time at night and parlayed it into being a major advisor to Wall Street. As for unaccredited well every program before they become accredited has to enroll students and start them on the program as part of the accreditation process. I don’t even know what she claims to have a doctorate in. For all I know it may be in English. As far as I’m concerned that’s immaterial. She’s simply offering an opinion. Plus how do you even know it’s the person you think it is. People spoof others on the web all the time.
Even MD’s call themselves doctor based on a historical fraud by trying to get the credibility of Ph.D.s to rub off on them. Plus it continues every day. M.D.s actually have minimal training in drugs (1 course) then as they say it’s see one, do one, teach one. Yet we’re supposed to believe any person with an M.D. over people who have much, much more extensive training and experience with human drug effects.
I can point to Drugwonks/CMPI. They currently have postings claiming they have never engaged in ad hominum attacks. Yet I know for a fact that they’ve removed postings after they were warned they were slanderous.
As for doubling the risk, if you want to ask about that and the source of the data I have no problems in fact I would be curious about that too, but the issue I have with your post is it seems to me that you have repeatedly attacked peeople personally.
As to giving Viagra to a tribal chief and dying with a smile on his face, I really doubt that. It seems to me that the pain of a heart attack would wipe any smile away. Plus I have to question the wisdom of even giving him Viagra in the first place. Was he given a medical exam first? What would be the consequences if he had died instead?
Now I’ve brought up certain individuals from FDA, but they’re public figures and I limit it to what they’re known for and what they’re involved in. The information I discuss about them is either public or I know from personal experience or by talking directly to the people involved and I believe is important to the public debate. Even when I state my opinion it’s based on objective evidence I’ve seen. Most importantly I ONLY do it because I truly believe their actions may result in significant public health hazards and widespread maiming and death and people need to be warned.
I’ve alluded to before that if it was only money people were being defrauded out of I would have kept quiet after going to the proper authorities. I have to add that if it were only a personal grievance over being fired or how I was personally treated I would keep quiet now. Being vocal here certainly can’t help me personally. Personally I may get irritated quickly but I don’t hold grudges. In truth I tried to stay at FDA only because I believed that if I left that the public health would be endangered and believe me it was no bowl of cherries trying to stay. I’ve suffered much worse in the past for raising safety issues and I’ve kept my mouth shut on several different occassions and never pursued it. While at FDA I was given an implied warning in writing that if I kept my mouth shut that I wouldn’t be fired. It was apparent to me from the timing that this warning involved the safety of the drug I was assigned to review. It’s only because of the numbers of people with the potential to be maimed or killed and the fact that it’s especially children that are most at risk, without in my informed opinion any expectation of benefit except for a few rare individuals that I said the things I said while at FDA or why I post at all now. Even posting I only come to because I exhausted all other avenues going to FDA management, Congress, federal criminal investigators and not seeing really anything substantial happening. Lastly I post because this time I have time to maybe do something about minimizing the consequences but only if I act now and try to communicate and raise public awareness and don’t wait for the several years the legal system may take.
I don’t like airing dirty laundry in a public forum and I would never do it for a personal reason. But sometimes the consequences of not doing so are just too great and the greater good demands it. This is one of those times.
atlex
Salmon,
You seem to have a major problem with brevity and continuously repeat your own story. Frankly, I’ve read it before and don’t need to read it over and over again. Of couese, I’ve only read your side of the story, so I don’t have enough information to develop an informed opinion. In my mind, you’re either a brave sole who has been treated unjustly or an unfortunate paranoid bureaucrat. If you are the former, I hope you get a fairing airing of your grievances and a just outcome. If you are the latter, I guess you’ve already suffered the appropriate consequences.
As for my Viagra statement…please get a sense of humor. In actuality, I couldn’t care if a tribal leader dies or not, so long as we get what we need from him.
I’m still unclear as to what about my background you don’t understand. I work in pharma and have significant years (>20) of experience primarily in areas related to marketing (not sales) both in major pharma and as a consultant. As I have also stated, I am not a medical or science professional. As Ed is aware, I am careful not to provide any specifics, because I am neither authorized to speak on behalf of my company nor interested in such a role.
As for your statement about Blake-Tracey, I think if you look at her Wikipedia listing and other sources, you’ll find that she received her PhD from an unaccredited school based purely on her experience. My intent is not a personal attack. I am careful to only attack those who attack me. As I previously stated, she calls herself “Dr. Blake-Tracey”, which to me, suggests that she is tossing her title out to imply that she has expertise in the area, thus giving greater credibility to her opinion. My intent was simply to suggest that her opinion should carry no more weight than anyone else’s since her credentials are suspect.
Atlex
Nathan
So far, this “Dr. Ann Blake-Tracy” has not supplied any data to support her claims. I’ll assume she is full of BS until she gives solid data to show otherwise.
Salmon
Atlex,
Most of what you say in the last post is fair. After I posted I did check about Blake-Tracey. I’ll grant you that in a quick search I find issues in her background. However I didn’t see her trying to use the term Dr. to imply gravitas in the present situation. As I said for all I knew based on this post she had a doctorate in English.
As for yourself, not giving specifics allowing identification with a specific company I can understand. However there are things you can reveal without endangering who you work for. For example I asked you before if Atlex signified that you are a lawyer, especially since some of your posts suggests you have a good knowledge of the law. Plus from your past posts I get the impression that you tend to focus your attacks largely on the individuals and not their arguments.
As for my own situation. You are correct about the two possibilities. I personally believe that there is sufficient written documentation to vindicate me and that should be sufficient to result in significant jail time for certain FDA officials. Just to be clear I am not talking about all of the FDA officials I have commented on here, only some of them. For some (e.g. Bob Powell) I have posted about here I am only pointing out certain facts related to what is publicly known about them and is related to their official functions and/or are my opinions related to their official work. These opinions of course are related to scientific facts regarding certain classes of drugs and/or my expertise in how drug development and FDA works and specific personal experiences.
Even if I am vindicated there is no reason that I should have had to go through what I have gone through and also will go through over the next several years trying to vindicate myself and for simply trying to do my job and protect the public. I’ve indicated that I have suffered from severe forms of mental illness. Considering that there’s a 10% chance of suicide among whistleblowers who don’t suffer from mental illness I believe that what I claim I was intentionally subjected to was simply unconscionable. Thus I hope that with the next session of Congress that I have the opportunity to meet with Congress and possibly even to testify on the importance of rapid passage of the whistleblowers protection act that would allow individuals such as myself to immediately go to a judge and get some sort of restraining order.
As for the tribal leader whether you care for him as a person or not I would suggest you should care whether he dies or not simply from prudence and what the potential consequences for our soldiers are.
Salmon
Nathan,
Why didn’t you make the same type of comment about the person who complained about the nearly doubled increased risk of suicide with antiepileptics.
He complained that it was due to an increased risk in prescribing for psychiatric diseases. When I checked the FDA advisory committee documents although there was an increased risk in patients with psychiatric diseases the average of a 1.8 fold increased risk overall was due to a nearly 4 fold increased risk in patients with epilepsy.
Why don’t you criticize that person for dumbing down the risk in epileptics.
Salmon
Nathan
Salmon, sorry I missed that post. I haven’t paid a lot of attention to this site for the last couple weeks. In general, if you make claims that the FDA made a mistake, then I think you should support that statement with some data. Do you disagree?
Salmon
Nathan,
It isn’t worth it on every single post. As with all news outlets there’s a lot of non-professionals and non experts. No one can monitor every comment on the web or in other media outlets. This was a pretty innocuous post and I took it as likely hyperbole and was just going to let it slide. I mean I certainly don’t agree with a lot of what people say here about psychiatry, psychiatric illness, and the drugs. Even if Blake-Tracy’s comment wasn’t meant as hyperbole I mean even you and I can’t get it right all the time either. However when I checked Blake-Tracy’s website I did find an interesting quote from a GWU researcher that if true may indicate something very significant and I would be interested in the source material for that. Plus even when I work and I know a drug company has lied to me repeatedly I need to look at each submission on its’ own merits.
As for getting it right here every time I made a comment to Steve a while back about costs of drug development then a few days after I made it I realized I could do some checking via annual reports if I wanted to and especially for biologics it may very well be higher than with small molecules although that wouldn’t help me with things that are inappropriately charged to drug development that rightly should be under marketing costs. I post as commentary here and I certainly don’t expect anyone to hold me to the same level of fact checking that I would expect of myself if I was doing a review or working and had access to better resources like a medical library.
I also haven’t pointed out some of the problems with your posts on phen-fen. For example you claim an average of $ 1 Million per person on average is way too large. Well the only place I’ve seen the $20 billion figure you quote is here on pharmalot. Other places have $5 - 13.1 billion. Plus even if it is $20 billion over 20,000 people at an average of $1 M per person. When you figure that these were typically young to middle aged women who had years decades of employment ahead of them and may no longer be able to work plus need treatment. Have a decreased quality of life with needing to take expensive treatments, oxygen and regular echo cardiography, then $1 Million for 40 - 50 years of life expectancy and loss of 30 - 40 years of work doesn’t seem outlandish to me. So I could very well make the same type of argument about your argument about preemption and that’s a much more serious issue than this.
As for claiming the FDA made a mistake and backing it up. Well I’ve been making repeated claims that it’s my opinion that FDA is extensively corrupted by the industry and approving drugs illegally yet for me to fully back it up I would have to break the law by obtaining and releasing documents that by regulation would be illegal. So no I don’t think I can agree with you. Instead we’ll have to wait for the Congressional hearings or other legal means to back up my claims.
There’s too much corruption with the pharmaceutical industry right now and until it’s corrected it’s only going to hurt the industry, the people in it, and most importantly patients. Ultimately that’s my main concern, the patients who are being harmed.
Oily George
“Wanna buy some wood?
Sounds Like Life is going to be fun, fun, fun for the girls and boys in Afghanistan!…some “special” Viagra side effects to look forward to:
Three men rape 13-year-old girl - Girl stoned to death for adultery
The Afghan women jailed for being victims of rape
Bush, Burqas and the Oppression of Afghan Women
Afghan Woman, raped, forced to watch her child killed, and then jailed for “escaping her house” by Anti-Taliban Govt.
School Girls Acid attacks and rape: growing threat to women who oppose traditional order - Female MPs speak out as conditions worsen and Islamists gain respectability
Abused Afghan women often end up in jail
A woman fleeing domestic violence or rape often ends up guilty
Go Team USA!
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