You won’t need to hear me say again that, in Michigan, the right to bring suit against a drug company–regardless of negligence or fraud–has not existed for 15 years. Thus, my moniker here and elsewhere. So that is one thing missing.

Personally, I believe that for most of the last forty years–I include the Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and both Bush administrations–corporate crime has been tacitly facilitated through “deregulation,” “reinventing government” (Gore), and a variety of sweet deals that involved both major parties, and public officials at all levels. This goes way beyond pharma.

I have not yet come to my own conclusion about the current Congress and administrations, but I cannot say I am sanguine.

I won’t go into the whole long reason for how I feel the way I do AGAIN. It’s all here in other threads. I would like an explanation for why my situation was flat ignored (rhetorical, I already know). It would be fun to hear the reasoning from those who can put a dog medication higher on the list of importance. I love dogs too, btw, but really. Nah, I’m no longer pissed, just… what went down is rediculous, dangerous, and evidently excusable.

I want government to put the people first (all people) and to do their job in handling our money. And while you all have a very valid point, something is missing. So good for her for bringing the conversation.

By “federal money,” we’re not talking bail-outs here. As Salmon pointed out, it could involve the right to submit an NDA to the FDA for some period of time. It could also involve Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare (armed forces) not buying–and thus not dispensing–Pfizer drugs.

As someone who has relied on at least one Pfizer drug–and for whom other drugs in that class are not options, and it is not generic–it would be very bad news if I were relying on Medicare or the Army formulary and couldn’t get it.

I assume there are many such people. To my mind, punishing them in the interest of “justice” is not justice.

Amy has it right- the people who have been harmed by any repeatedly offensive company should not have their tax dollars supporting that company. Injustices are nearly impossible to get past as it is. It should never be that our government snub their noses at us and continue to support wrongdoing.
That said, criminal prosecutions are fine by me.

Welcome back everyone.

Thank you for your comments. One thing I’ll add is that I truly believe that the actual abuses are far less now than in the past for many reasons. I hope that increased transparency will make abuses even more rare.

Atlex

With some exceptions, most of us who are often critical are not “anti” industry. We _want_ to be fair and reasonable, just as most industry people do.

What happens in that moments of greater confidence are interrupted by the “next bad thing,” and there is a recurring oscillation between rebuilt confidence and its dissolution. Each time, it becomes easier to anticipate, perhaps assume, that one’s trust was misplaced. I understand that media, politics, and a range of cultural trends play into the cycle. But that cycle is a key part of what needs to change for everyone’s benefit. It will take a lot of time and, I believe, pretty radical change of incentive structure.

I appreciate what he says. In my class, I describe being in pharma (at least at some levels and arenas) as being like a priest in Amsterdam (with apologies to priests and Dutch people)–the temptations to trespass are enormous, one’s obligation to resist is greater than in most other professions. Said more simply, nobody cares if a sociologist messes up.

On a terrific thread in Pharmalot I, many industry people remarked on a trend toward ncreasingly pushing the ethical/regulatory envelope, or breaking it, that they had observed during their time in the industry–often twenty years or more. They gave a range of compelling reasons, and offered a number of insightful solutions. I’ll try to retrieve that.

What we public respond to, of course, are the released emails, meeting notes, etc.. And so we hear, in their own words, managers at varous levels talking about “burying studies,” deliberate misinformation, etc., as well as the rationale that “everyone is doing it.” It is very difficult, for outsiders to put such releases within the wider context of what’s going on in companies and in the industry as a whole.

But what we should all remember here is that the OIG guidelines came out all of, what?, six years ago? There’ve definitely been some growing pains and a LOT of reeducation. These things take time.