News Articles
| UK: GlaxoSmithKline chief's pay package more than doubles to £6.7m by Jill Treanor, The Guardian (UK) March 12th, 2012 GlaxoSmithKline boss Sir Andrew Witty's pay package more than doubled to £6.7m last year – but the drugs group reckons he remains underpaid and has awarded him a new deal which could generate up to £10.4m this year. |
| INDIA: Controller General Overrules Bayer, Allowing Generic Drug by Vikas Bajaj and Andrew Pollack, New York Times March 12th, 2012 India’s government authorized a national drug manufacturer to make and sell a generic copy of a patented Bayer drug used to treat advanced kidney cancer and liver cancer, saying that Bayer charged a price that was unaffordable to most of the nation. |
| INDIA: Supreme Court to Hear Dispute on Drug Patents by Vikas Bajaj and Andrew Pollack, New York Times March 6th, 2012 A Swiss drug company, Novartis, will go before the Indian Supreme Court this monnth to fight patent laws that protect the global supply of inexpensive medicines to treat AIDS, cancer and other diseases. The lawsuit - which involves a drug called Gleevec - is being opposed by international aid groups. |
| US: Online Age Quiz Is a Window for Drug Makers by STEPHANIE CLIFFORD, New York Times March 25th, 2009 RealAge, promising to help shave years off your age, has become one of the most popular quizzes on the Internet. The test asks 150 questions about lifestyle and family history to assign a “biological age." But then pharmaceutical companies pay RealAge to compile test results of RealAge members and send them marketing messages by e-mail. |
| US: High Court Eases Way to Liability Lawsuits by Jess Bravin, Wall Street Journal March 5th, 2009 The Supreme Court said drug makers can be sued in state court over alleged defects, even if the Food and Drug Administration has approved a medication's use. The 6-3 ruling undercuts years of business efforts to block state suits over the safety of products from motorcycle brakes to railway cars. |
| SWITZERLAND: Davos Scales Back Glitz by Associated Press, New York Times January 25th, 2009 The economic crisis that emerged out the collapse of securities based on shaky U.S. mortgages poses challenges for the Davos World Economic Forum, an arena that has championed market-driven approaches. |
| US: Research Center Tied to Drug Company
by GARDINER HARRIS, The New York Times November 24th, 2008 Court documents reveal that Dr. Joseph Biederman, a renowned child psychiatrist, pushed Johnson & Johnson to fund a research center whose goal was “to move forward the commercial goals of J&J.” |
| US: Radio Host Has Drug Company Ties
by GARDINER HARRIS, The New York Times November 21st, 2008 An influential psychiatrist who was the host of the popular NPR program “The Infinite Mind” earned at least $1.3 million from 2000 to 2007 giving marketing lectures for drugmakers, income not mentioned on the program. |
| US: Eli Lilly settles Zyprexa inquiries in 32 states by TOM MURPHY and MARLEY SEAMAN, Associated Press October 7th, 2008 Drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co. cleared another legal cloud hanging over its top-selling drug Zyprexa when it announced a $62 million settlement Tuesday, but several other storms are still brewing for the antipsychotic medication. |
| ARGENTINA: Is GlaxoSmithKline Behaving Badly in Argentina?
by AINA HUNTER, ABC News September 23rd, 2008 Michaela, a deceased 5 month old, is one of more than 13,000 Argentine children to participate in a clinical study implemented a little more than a year ago by the London-based GlaxoSmithKline, the world's second-largest drug manufacturer. |
| US: Judge to Unseal Documents on the Eli Lilly Drug Zyprexa
by MARY WILLIAMS WALSH, The New York Times September 5th, 2008 A federal judge in Brooklyn decided on Friday to unseal confidential materials about Eli Lilly’s top-selling antipsychotic drug Zyprexa, citing “the health of hundreds of thousands of people” and “fundamental questions” about the way drugs are approved for new uses. |
| US: U.S. Drug Ads Questioned
by KEITH J. WINSTEIN and SUZANNE VRANICA, The Wall Street Journal September 3rd, 2008 Consumer advertising for prescription drugs had a negligible impact on sales of products studied by Harvard Medical School researchers -- in a finding that may confound both advertisers and their opponents. |
| US: For Widely Used Drug, Question of Usefulness Is Still Lingering
by ALEX BERENSON, The New York Times September 1st, 2008 About the only point on which both sides agree is that no one can judge ezetimibe’s safety and benefits for certain without more data, ideally from a clinical trial covering more than 10,000 patients and lasting several years, long enough to show that the drug actually helps patients live longer or avoid heart attacks. |
| GLOBAL: Drug Makers’ Push Leads to Cancer Vaccines’ Fast Rise
by Elisabeth Rosenthal, The New York Times August 19th, 2008 The lightning-fast transition from newly minted vaccine to must-have injection in the United States and Europe represents a triumph of what the manufacturers call education and their critics call marketing. |
| US: Psychiatric Group Faces Scrutiny Over Drug Industry Ties
by BENEDICT CAREY and GARDINER HARRIS, The New York Times July 12th, 2008 Senator Charles E. Grassley, right, Republican of Iowa, is demanding that the American Psychiatric Association give an accounting of its financing from the pharmaceutical industry. |
| US: U.S. Probe of Glaxo's Paxil Widens
by ALICIA MUNDY, The Wall Street Journal June 20th, 2008 A Justice Department investigation of GlaxoSmithKline PLC's handling of its blockbuster antidepressant drug Paxil, including its marketing and safety research, appears to be widening. |
| US: Mannatech Settles Holder Suits
by SUZANNE SATALINE, Wall Street Journal June 13th, 2008 Dietary-supplements maker Mannatech Inc. said it settled several lawsuits with shareholders who accused the company of using improper sales tactics to boost the value of the stock. |
| US: Researchers Fail to Reveal Full Drug Pay
by GARDINER HARRIS and BENEDICT CAREY, The New York Times June 8th, 2008 A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007 but for years did not report much of this income to university officials, according to information given Congressional investigators. |
| US: Walgreen to Pay $35 Million
To Settle Drug-Switch Charges
by HEATHER WON TESORIERO, Wall Street Journal June 4th, 2008 Walgreen Co. has agreed to pay $35 million to settle allegations that it improperly switched customers to more expensive forms of pills paid for by Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor. |
| US: Merck Agrees to Settlement Over Vioxx Ads
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, The New York Times May 21st, 2008 The drug maker, Merck & Company, has agreed to pay $58 million as part of a multistate settlement of accusations that its ads for the once-popular painkiller Vioxx deceptively played down the health risks. |
| US: Merck Wrote Drug Studies for Doctors
by STEPHANIE SAUL, The New York Times April 16th, 2008 The drug maker Merck drafted dozens of research studies for a best-selling drug, then lined up prestigious doctors to put their names on the reports before publication, according to an article to be published Wednesday in a leading medical journal. |
| US: Drug Companies to Reveal Grant Practices
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, The New York Times April 11th, 2008 Watchdog groups say the companies are trying to derail legislation that would require public disclosure of their giving. |
| US: Drug Makers Near Old Goal: A Legal Shield
by GARDINER HARRIS and ALEX BERENSON, The New York Times April 6th, 2008 The Bush administration has argued strongly in favor of the doctrine, which holds that the F.D.A. is the only agency with enough expertise to regulate drug makers and that its decisions should not be second-guessed by courts. The Supreme Court is to rule on a case next term that could make pre-emption a legal standard for drug cases. The court already ruled in February that many suits against the makers of medical devices like pacemakers are pre-empted. |
| US: Eli Lilly E-Mail Discussed Unapproved Use of Drug by ALEX BERENSON, The New York Times March 17th, 2008 John C. Lechleiter, an Eli Lilly official who is about to become the company's top executive, wrote an e-mail message in 2003 that appears to have encouraged Lilly to promote its schizophrenia medicine Zyprexa for a use not approved by federal drug regulators. |
| US: In Trial, Alaska Says Lilly Concealed Risks of a Schizophrenia Drug
by ALEX BERENSON, The New York Times March 6th, 2008 Eli Lilly, the drug maker, systematically hid the risks and side effects of Zyprexa, its best-selling schizophrenia medicine, a lawyer for the State of Alaska said Wednesday in opening arguments in a lawsuit that contends the drug caused many schizophrenic patients to develop diabetes. |
| US: Court Considers Protecting Drug Makers From Lawsuits
by GARDINER HARRIS, The New York Times February 26th, 2008 Less than a week after issuing a sweeping ruling that bars most lawsuits against medical device makers, the Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in the first of two cases that could determine whether drug makers receive similar protection. |
| US: Pfizer to End Lipitor Ads by Jarvik
by STEPHANIE SAUL, The New York Times February 26th, 2008 Under criticism that its ads are misleading, Pfizer said Monday that it would cancel a long-running advertising campaign using the artificial heart pioneer Robert Jarvik as a spokesman for its cholesterol drug Lipitor. |
| CHINA: China Plant Played Role In Drug Tied to 4 Deaths
by ANNA WILDE MATHEWS and THOMAS M. BURTON, The Wall Street Journal February 14th, 2008 A Chinese facility that hasn't been inspected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration made the active ingredient in much of the widely used Baxter International Inc. blood-thinner that is under investigation after reports of hundreds of allergic reactions and four deaths among the drug's users, the agency said yesterday. |
| US: Committee Investigates Ad Tactics for Lipitor by Stephanie Saul, New York Times February 8th, 2008 A Congressional investigation revealed that Pfizer agreed to pay Dr. Jarvik $1,350,000 as a celebrity pitchman for the heart drug Lipitor, and wants to know how much stunt doubles in the ads may have also been paid. |
| US: Drug Ads Raise Questions for Heart Pioneer
by STEPHANIE SAUL, The New York Times February 7th, 2008 Celebrity advertising endorsements are nothing new, of course. But the Lipitor campaign is a rare instance of a well-known doctor’s endorsing a drug in advertising — and it has helped rekindle a smoldering debate over whether it is appropriate to aim ads for prescription drugs directly at consumers. |
| CHINA: Tainted Drugs Tied to Maker of Abortion Pill
by JAKE HOOKER and WALT BOGDANICH, The New York Times January 31st, 2008 A huge state-owned Chinese pharmaceutical company that exports to dozens of countries, including the United States, is at the center of a nationwide drug scandal after nearly 200 Chinese cancer patients were paralyzed or otherwise harmed last summer by contaminated leukemia drugs. |
| GLOBAL: False 'Green' Ads Draw Global Scrutiny
by Tom Wright, Wall Street Journal January 30th, 2008 With companies eager to tout their "green" credentials to consumers, advertising watchdogs are stepping up efforts to rein in marketers that make false or exaggerated claims. |
| US: Antidepressants Under Scrutiny Over Efficacy
by DAVID ARMSTRONG and KEITH J. WINSTEIN, Wall Street Journal January 17th, 2008 The effectiveness of a dozen popular antidepressants has been exaggerated by selective publication of favorable results, according to a review of unpublished data submitted to the Food and Drug Administration. |
| EU: European Antitrust Regulators Raid Large Drug Makers
by STEPHEN CASTLE and JAMES KANTER, New York Times January 17th, 2008 Antitrust regulators on Wednesday raided big European drug makers as part of an investigation into whether patents and lawsuit settlements are being manipulated to keep generic products off the market. |
| GLOBAL: Global campaign vows to fight MNC drug monopoly by Marwaan Macan-Markar , IPS News November 26th, 2007 Public health and HIV/AIDS activists from the developing world are seeking to break the monopoly over drugs held by pharmaceutical giants through a new global campaign designed to influence international debate over the issue. |
| US: Merck Agrees to Settle Vioxx Suits for $4.85 Billion by Alex Barenson, New York Times November 9th, 2007 Three years after withdrawing its pain medication Vioxx from the market, Merck has agreed to pay $4.85 billion to settle 27,000 lawsuits by people who claim they or their family members suffered injury or died after taking the drug. |
| CHINA: Chinese Chemicals Flow Unchecked to Market by Walter Bogdanich, NY Times October 31st, 2007 Pharmaceutical ingredients exported from China are often made by chemical companies that are neither certified nor inspected by Chinese drug regulators, The New York Times has found. |
| US: F.D.A. Panel Urges Ban on Medicine for Child Colds by Gardiner Harris, NY Times October 20th, 2007 A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel voted Friday to ban popular over-the-counter cold products intended for children under the age of 6. |
| US: V.A. Is Limiting Use of Diabetes Drug by Stephanie Saul, NY Times October 18th, 2007 The Department of Veterans Affairs has decided to severely limit the use of Avandia, the once-popular drug for Type 2 diabetes, delivering another blow to the product’s maker, GlaxoSmithKline. |
| INDIA: Novartis Patents Case Far From Dead by Praful Bidwai, Inter Press Service News Agency August 9th, 2007 Cancer patients in India have reason to be relieved at a high court ruling this week which dismissed a petition by Swiss pharmaceuticals multinational corporation (MNC) Novartis challenging an Indian law which denies patents for minor or trivial improvements to known drugs. |
| INDIA: Setback for Novartis in India Over Drug Patent by Amelia Gentleman, The New York Times August 7th, 2007 Indian companies will be free to continue making less expensive generic drugs, much of which flow to the developing world, after a court rejected a challenge to the patent law on Monday. |
| US: Lawmaker Calls for Registry of Drug Firms Paying Doctors by Gardiner Harris, New York Times August 4th, 2007 An influential Republican senator says he will propose legislation requiring drug makers to disclose the payments they make to doctors for services like consulting, lectures and attendance at seminars. |
| US: FDA Panel to Review Avandia by Jennifer Corbett Dooren, The Wall Street Journal July 26th, 2007 The Food and Drug Administration will ask a panel of outside medical experts Monday whether it thinks GlaxoSmithKline PLC's diabetes drug Avandia should remain on the U.S. market. |
| US: Tax Break Used by Drug Makers Failed to Add Jobs by Alex Berenson, The New York Times July 24th, 2007 Two years ago, when companies received a big tax break to bring home their offshore profits, the president and Congress justified it as a one-time tax amnesty that would create American jobs. Drug makers were the biggest beneficiaries of the amnesty program, repatriating about $100 billion in foreign profits and paying only minimal taxes. But the companies did not create many jobs in return. Instead, since 2005 the American drug industry has laid off tens of thousands of workers in thi |
| US: Drug Safety Critic Hurls Darts From the Inside by Stephanie Saul, New York Times July 23rd, 2007 An activist doctor emerges as the nation's unoffical ariter of drug safety by digging deep into companies' clinical data. At the same time, he presides over industry-financeed research worth millions of dollars. |
| NIGERIA: Nigeria Adds Fraud Charge
Against Pfizer in Civil Lawsuit by Associated Press, Wall Street Journal July 20th, 2007 Nigerian government lawyers added a tougher fraud charge in their $7 billion civil lawsuit against drug maker Pfizer Friday. |
| US: 3 Executives Spared Prison in OxyContin Case by Barry Meier, The New York Times July 20th, 2007 After hearing testimony from parents of young adults who died from overdoses involving the painkiller OxyContin, a federal judge Friday sentenced three top executives of the company that makes the narcotic to three years' probation and 400 hours each of community service in drug treatment programs. |
| NIGERIA: Pfizer wins early Nigeria battle BBC News June 26th, 2007 A Nigerian court has refused to allow more cases to be added to a lawsuit against a pharmaceutical giant accused of improper drugs trials on children. |
| US: Bristol-Myers to Pay Fine Agence France Presse May 31st, 2007 Bristol-Myers Squibb has agreed to plead guilty and pay a $1 million criminal fine for lying to the government about a patent deal on its blood-thinning drug Plavix, officials said Wednesday. The Justice Department said in a statement that the company’s actions had threatened to reduce competition for the drug, one of the best-selling prescription medications worldwide. |
| NIGERIA: Pfizer Faces Criminal Charges in Nigeria by Joe Stephens, Washington Post May 30th, 2007 Officials in Nigeria have brought criminal charges against pharmaceutical giant Pfizer for the company's alleged role in the deaths of children who received an unapproved drug during a meningitis epidemic. |
| THAILAND: Holding Big Pharma's feet to the fire by Marwaan Macan-Markar, Inter Press Service May 17th, 2007 For nearly a week, the advertising pages of Thai- and English-language dailies have been the stage for debates on Thailand's decision to break patents on anti-AIDS drugs in the interest of public health. A lobby championing the cause of the powerful pharmaceutical companies ran full-page spreads in the morning newspapers with an eye-catching warning in large, bold text, which said: "The Wrong Prescription for Thailand". |
| BRAZIL: Brazil to break Aids drug patent
BBC May 4th, 2007 Brazil's president has authorised the country to bypass the patent on an Aids drug manufactured by Merck, a US pharmaceutical giant. |
| US: Doctors’ Ties to Drug Makers Are Put on Close View by Gardiner Harris, The New York Times March 21st, 2007 Dr. Allan Collins may be the most influential kidney specialist in the country. He is president of the National Kidney Foundation and director of a government-financed research center on kidney disease. |
| US: BP/UC Deal Raises Concerns by Richard Brenneman, Berkeley Daily Planet March 2nd, 2007 The proposed agreement between one of the world’s largest oil companies, BP (formerly British Petroleum) and UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Illinois has ignited a firestorm that promises to burn long and hot. |
| US: Corporate Profits Take an Offshore Vacation by Lucy Komisar, Inter Press Service February 23rd, 2007 Last week, Merck, the pharmaceutical multinational, announced that it will pay 2.3 billion dollars in back taxes, interest and penalties in one of the largest settlements for tax evasion the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has ever imposed. |
| SOUTH AFRICA: MCC stalls new Aids drugs by Belinda Beresford, Mail & Guardian Online February 3rd, 2007 South Africans have been denied the “biggest advance” in antiretroviral therapy over the last few years because of a lack of urgency in the drug registration process in South Africa, according to the Treatment Action Campaign. |
| INDIA: Novartis challenges India's patent law by Matthew Allen, Swiss Info January 29th, 2007 A court case brought by Swiss drugs giant Novartis in India could define how the industry distributes discount medicine to the developing world while maintaining profits. |
| ASIA: Asian Govts Push Generic Drugs by Marwaan Macan-Markar, Inter Press Service December 18th, 2006 In moves that are winning them praise, two South-east Asian governments -- in Thailand and the Philippines -- appear determined to push ahead with plans to provide cheaper generic drugs even if they incur the wrath of pharmaceutical giants. |
| US: Corporation wants to drill on Mt. Taylor by Zsombor Peter, The Gallup Independent December 7th, 2006 After drilling six exploratory holes by Mt. Taylor earlier this year in search of uranium, the Western Energy Development Corporation is asking for state and federal permission to drill 47 more. |
| US: Pfizer Drug Dealt Blow in Testing
by Alex Berenson, The New York Times November 1st, 2006 Pfizer said yesterday that clinical trials of torcetrapib — a heart medication that is the most important drug in the company’s pipeline — confirmed that it raises blood pressure, a potentially serious side effect. |
| US: Harvard Researcher Forced Bayer to Disclose Drug Toxicity Study by Justin Blum and Eva von Schaper, Bloomberg October 6th, 2006 Bayer AG's disclosure last week of a study showing that a promising medicine has deadly side effects came only after a Harvard drug safety expert told U.S. regulators that the research existed. |
| US: Schering-Plough Agrees To Plead Guilty, Pay Fine by Denise Lavoie, Associated Press August 30th, 2006 Schering-Plough Corp. on Tuesday agreed to pay $435 million and plead guilty to conspiracy to settle a federal investigation into marketing of its drugs for unapproved uses and overcharging Medicaid for certain drugs. |
| THAILAND: Patent or patient? How Washington uses trade deals to protect drugs by Alan Beattie, Andrew Jack and Amy Kazmin, The Financial Times August 22nd, 2006 As the World Health Organisation's top man in Thailand, William Aldis knew Thai officials were hosting their US counterparts in the northern city of Chiang Mai to negotiate what to many outsiders might seem an entirely worthy objective: a bilateral free-trade deal. But he saw dangers - and decided to make his views public. |
| US: Drug Companies Face Inquiry for Drug Patent by Stephanie Saul, The New York Times July 27th, 2006 Two big drug companies that market the best-selling drug Plavix — Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb — had been looking for good news this week: an all-clear from the federal government and several states to settle a patent dispute. Instead, they got a notice that the proposed settlement is the subject of a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice. |
| US: Approval of Antibiotic Worried Safety Officials by Gardiner Harris, The New York Times July 19th, 2006 In an internal review, a federal drug safety official concluded that a controversial antibiotic made by a French drug company should be withdrawn, according to e-mail messages exchanged among top agency officials. |
| US: Hospital Chiefs Get Paid for Advice on Selling by Walt Bogdanich , The New York Times July 17th, 2006 One recent sun-splashed afternoon, executives who run some of America's leading nonprofit hospitals met at a stately Colorado resort for an unusual mission: to advise companies confidentially on how best to sell their drugs, medical devices and financial services to hospitals. |
| WORLD: Prices Soar for Cancer Drugs by Liz Szabo, USA Today July 10th, 2006 Spiraling prices for new cancer therapies — up to $10,000 a month for a single drug — are causing alarm among patients and insurance companies. |
| INDIA: Petri Dish for Pharmaceutical MNCs by Ann De Ron, Inter Press News Service July 10th, 2006 Pharmaceutical multinationals, seeking to ramp up profits through cheap drug trials, are increasingly turning to India with its combination of a vast pool of poor, ignorant patients on the one hand and skilled medical personnel and fine research infrastructure on the other. |
| US: Johnson & Johnson Told to Pay Damages in Pain-Patch Death Bloomberg News July 8th, 2006 Jurors in a state court in Houston decided yesterday that Johnson & Johnson, the consumer health care company, must pay $772,500 to the family of a Texas woman who died after a patch intended to release pain-killing drugs leaked. |
| US: Vioxx 'a Hazard,' Doctor Testifies The Associated Press July 6th, 2006 Patients who took the painkiller Vioxx were at risk of heart attacks and strokes — something shown by studies conducted years before the product went on the market, a doctor testified Wednesday. |
| US: Another Merck Drug Is Under Legal Attack by Molly Selvin, The Los Angeles Times July 5th, 2006 As Merck & Co. defends itself against a deluge of litigation involving its pain reliever Vioxx, the pharmaceutical giant also is fielding the first of what could be another wave of lawsuits involving Fosamax, its second-biggest seller. |
| US: Petitions to FDA Sometimes Delay Generic Drugs by Marc Kaufman, The Washington Post July 3rd, 2006 A procedure designed to alert the Food and Drug Administration to scientific and safety issues is getting a hard look from members of Congress, who say they are concerned that it may be getting subverted by the brand-name drug industry. |
| US: Charities Tied to Doctors Get Drug Industry Gifts by Reed Abelson, The New York Times June 28th, 2006 Around the country, doctors in private practice have set up tax-exempt charities into which drug companies and medical device makers are, with little fanfare, pouring donations — money that adds up to millions of dollars a year. And some medical experts see that as a big problem. |
| EUROPE: Drug Firms Attacked on Marketing BBC News June 27th, 2006 The Consumers International lobby group accused drugmakers of using the methods to get doctors to prescribe products and persuade consumers they need them. |
| US: Correction to Study Shows Vioxx Risks Appeared Early on The Associated Press June 26th, 2006 A correction published Monday to a key study on withdrawn painkiller Vioxx reveals the risk of heart problems was elevated throughout the time people were on the drug and did not develop only after 18 months of use as the drug's maker, Merck & Co., has contended. |
| US: Drug Firms a Danger to Health – Report by Sarah Boseley, The Guardian (UK) June 26th, 2006 Drug companies are accused today of endangering public health through widescale marketing malpractices, ranging from covertly attempting to persuade consumers that they are ill to bribing doctors and misrepresenting the results of safety and efficacy tests on their products. |
| US: Merck's Zocor Deal Stirs Ill Will The Associated Press June 22nd, 2006 The pharmaceutical firm slashes the price of its cholesterol drug for one insurance plan. Generic maker Teva weighs legal action. |
| US: Drug Prices Up Sharply This Year by Milt Freudenheim, The New York Times June 21st, 2006 Prices of the most widely used prescription drugs rose sharply in this year's first quarter, just as the new Medicare drug coverage program was going into effect, according to separate studies issued yesterday by two large consumer advocacy groups. |
| US: Drugs firm blocks cheap blindness cure
by Sarah Boseley, The Guardian June 17th, 2006 A major drug company is blocking access to a medicine that is cheaply and effectively saving thousands of people from going blind because it wants to launch a more expensive product on the market. |
| UK: Drugs Firm Blocks Cheap Blindness Cure by Sarah Boseley, The Guardian (UK) June 17th, 2006 A major drug company is blocking access to a medicine that is cheaply and effectively saving thousands of people from going blind because it wants to launch a more expensive product on the market. |
| US: Lawyer: Merck Scrapped Study on Vioxx by Linda A. Johnson, The Associated Press June 16th, 2006 Merck & Co. scrapped a planned study of the cardiac safety of Vioxx once it knew U.S. regulators were going to tone down their warning about heart risks for patients taking the painkiller, a plaintiff's lawyer argued Friday in a product liability trial. |
| US: Drugmaker to Pay $8.5 Million to Settle Texas Medicaid Lawsuit Bloomberg News June 13th, 2006 Baxter International Inc., the world's biggest maker of blood-disease treatments, has agreed to pay $8.5 million to settle a suit alleging it falsely reported the prices of drugs to the Texas Medicaid system. |
| US: Grandmother Takes on Merck in Vioxx Trial by LINDA A. JOHNSON, Associated Press June 5th, 2006 Drug maker Merck & Co. repeatedly tried to downplay the cardiac risks of its painkiller Vioxx, so user Elaine Doherty didn't know about them and couldn't control them before she suffered a heart attack after taking the drug, her lawyer told jurors as a product liability trial began Monday. |
| US: Merck Admits a Data Error on Vioxx by Alex Berenson, New York Times May 31st, 2006 In an admission that could undermine one of its core defenses in Vioxx-related lawsuits, Merck said yesterday that it had erred when it reported in early 2005 that a crucial statistical test showed that Vioxx caused heart problems only after 18 months of continuous use. |
| US: FDA Warns Wyeth on Quality at Puerto Rico Plant RUETERS May 30th, 2006 Possible contaminants in headache remedies, hormone replacement therapy and other pills made at Wyeth's (WYE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) plant in Puerto Rico have not been adequately checked out or corrected, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday. |
| WORLD: Drug Companies 'Failing to Meet Health Needs of World's Poorest'
by Jeremy Laurance, Independent (UK) May 23rd, 2006 The existing system of drug patenting and pricing is fundamentally flawed and does not meet health needs, according to report released to health experts last month. |
| US: Uh-oh, it's the shareholders by Bruce Meyerson, Chicago Sun-Times May 21st, 2006 It happens only once a year, and yet so many headstrong corporate CEO's can't seem to cope with being in a room with shareholders for a few hours at the annual meeting. |
| WORLD: From Asia to America, How Bausch's Crisis Grew by Barnaby J. Feder, The New York Times May 18th, 2006 Early in March, Bausch & Lomb received a troubling phone call from a New Jersey eye doctor. Dr. David S. Chu, a specialist in cornea diseases, alerted the company that three of his recent patients had been afflicted with a microbe that caused a potentially blinding eye infection. |
| US: Selling Generic Drugs by Mail
Turns Into Lucrative Business by Barbara Martinez, Wall Street Journal May 9th, 2006 In many industries, middlemen scrape by on small margins. Not so in generic drugs. |
| US: Doctors Object to Gathering of Drug Data by Stephanie Saul, The New York Times May 4th, 2006 A rebellion is under way by some doctors, who consider the data-gathering an intrusion that feeds overzealous sales practices among the nation's estimated 90,000 drug company representatives. Public officials are also weighing in. A vote on a state bill to clamp down on the practice is scheduled for today in New Hampshire, and similar bills have been introduced in other states, including Arizona and West Virginia. |
| US: Generic Drug Payoff Draws Gov't. Interest by Andrew Bridges, Associated Press April 25th, 2006 Brand-name pharmaceutical companies have resumed paying generic drug manufacturers to stay off the market under the terms of some legal settlements, attracting renewed scrutiny from federal regulators, trade officials said Monday. |
| US: Experts Defining Mental Disorders Are Linked to Drug Firms by Shankar Vedantam, The Washington Post April 20th, 2006 Every psychiatric expert involved in writing the standard diagnostic criteria for disorders such as depression and schizophrenia has had financial ties to drug companies that sell medications for those illnesses, a new analysis has found. |
| AFRICA: WHO advisers urge drugs firms cut prices for poor Reuters April 3rd, 2006 International drugs companies should seek to reduce prices for medicines sold to the poorest countries and avoid filing for patent protection there, a report prepared for the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday. |
| SOUTH AMERICA: Creating a Network Against Biopiracy by Mario Osava, Inter Press Service News Agency March 27th, 2006 Two patents granted in the United States between 2000 and 2002 and another for which an application has been filed have put "maca", a high altitude Andean plant that is used by indigenous people in Peru, at the centre of a new battle against biopiracy, which involves the construction of an international network against the misappropriation of traditional knowledge. |
| US: Frist a frequent flier on drug companies' jets by Bill Theobald, The Dickson Herald March 9th, 2006 |
| UK: Bone researcher: Proctor & Gamble is hiding data United Press Inernational March 1st, 2006 A British-based researcher Wednesday accused Procter and Gamble of hiding data regarding its osteoporosis drug Actonel. |
| INDIA: A Nation of Guinea Pigs by Jennifer Kahn, Wired Magazine March 1st, 2006 The market in India for outsourced clinical drug trials will hit $1.5 billion by 2010. Enticed by numbers like these, developing countries have been scrambling to catch Big Pharma's eye - India most aggressively of all. |
| UK: Drug firm censured for lapdancing junket by Sarah Boseley, The Guardian February 14th, 2006 One of the world's largest drug companies has been disciplined by the industry's UK watchdog after admitting that its staff entertained doctors to greyhound racing, lapdancing and Centre Court tickets at Wimbledon. |
| US: Record Sales of Sleeping Pills Are Causing Worries by Stephanie Saul, The New York Times February 7th, 2006 Americans are taking sleeping pills like never before, fueled by frenetic workdays that do not go gently into a great night's sleep, and lulled by a surge of consumer advertising that promises safe slumber with minimal side effects. |
| WORLD: WHO Shuts Life Sciences Industry Group Out of Setting Health Standards Environment News Service February 2nd, 2006 The World Health Organization (WHO) has barred a life sciences industry association from participating in setting global standards protecting food and water supplies because its members have a financial stake in the outcome. |
| US: Multiple Risks of Surgery Drug Seen by Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times January 26th, 2006 |
| US: In Article, Doctors Back Ban on Gifts From Drug Makers by Gardiner Harris, The New York Times January 25th, 2006 The gifts, drugs and classes that makers of pharmaceuticals and medical devices routinely give doctors undermine medical care, hurt patients and should be banned, a group of influential doctors say in today's issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association. |
| US: Former Biogen Executive Settles Insider-Trading Charges by John Hechinger, Wall Street Journal January 12th, 2006 The former general counsel of Biogen Idec Inc. settled securities-fraud and insider-trading charges, agreeing to pay more than $3 million related to his sale of company shares on the day the biotech company learned that a patient taking its new multiple sclerosis drug was sick with a deadly infection. |
| US: Drug Makers Scrutinized Over Grants by Gardiner Harris, The New York Times January 11th, 2006 A Congressional investigation of the money that drug companies give as supposed educational grants has found that the payments are growing rapidly and are sometimes steered by marketing executives to doctors and groups who push unapproved uses of drugs. |
| US: Abbott Suit Granted Class-Action Status Associated Press January 4th, 2006 A federal judge has granted class-action status to a lawsuit accusing Abbott Laboratories Inc. of cheating older workers out of retirement benefits when it spun off its hospital equipment business in 2004. |
| US: Feds Not Told of 2 Deaths During Study of Heart Drug by Stephanie Saul, The New York Times January 4th, 2006 The Scios unit of Johnson & Johnson yesterday added to the questions already clouding its heart failure medication Natrecor, saying the company had failed to tell federal regulators about the deaths of two patients in a clinical trial of the drug. |
| US: Opposition to Drug Co. Liability Protection Grows by Brendan Coyne, The New Standard January 2nd, 2006 With enactment of a $453 billion defense spending bill at hand, opposition is growing over a provision granting pharmaceutical companies wide protection from lawsuits. |
| US: F.D.A. Puts Restrictions on Guidant by Vikas Bajaj, The New York Times December 28th, 2005 The Food and Drug Administration yesterday released a warning letter it sent to the Guidant Corporation, restricting the ability of the company to win approval for some new medical products. In the letter, sent a week ago, the agency said Guidant, the heart device maker, had not fully responded to its concerns about manufacturing procedures at the company's biggest plant. |
| US: On Opinion Page, a Lobby's Hand Is Often Unseen by Philip Shenon, The New York Times December 23rd, 2005 |
| US: Lilly Pleads Guilty to Misdemeanor Violation Reuters December 21st, 2005 Eli Lilly and Co. said on Wednesday it will plead guilty to a misdemeanor violation as part of a settlement with the government over its marketing and promotional practices for an osteoporosis drug. |
| AFRICA: Death By Dilution by Robert Cockburn, American Prospect December 20th, 2005 When fakes of a GlaxoSmithKline anti-malarial drug turned up in Africa, authorities assumed the drug giant would want to know. Instead, they learned about a huge, evil trade in fake drugs -- and about an industry that doesn’t want the truth to get out. |
| INDIA: Testing Drugs on India's Poor by Scott Carney, Wired December 19th, 2005 Multinational corporations are riding high on the trend toward globalization by taking advantage of India's educated work force and deep poverty to turn South Asia into the world's largest clinical-testing petri dish. |
| US: Gimme an Rx! Cheerleaders Pep Up Drug Sales by Stephanie Saul, New York Times November 28th, 2005 Sales representatives in the pharmaceutical industry are frequently female and invariably good looking because they are.drawn from the ranks of cheerleaders to sway the hearts of the nation's doctors, who still are mostly men. |
| US: Small-town doctor takes on corporate health-care giant by Tony Messenger, Columbia (MO) Daily Tribune November 15th, 2005 |
| GLOBAL: World Bank Gets Cold Feet on Bird Flu Drug Patent by Marwaan Macan-Markar, Inter Press Service November 4th, 2005 The World Bank has decided that it is not in keeping with its mission to get involved in the emerging global debate on the Tamilfu patent held by the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche and that could be broken under the 'compulsory licencing' rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). |
| U.S.: Fiction Genre Fits Big Pharma by Michael Hiltzik, LA Times October 27th, 2005 According to a proposal, PhRMA was to pay Phoenix a six-figure sum for the marketing and production of a written-to-order fictional thriller. The plotline was what Hollywood would term high-concept — a group of shadowy terrorists conspires to murder thousands of Americans by poisoning the medicine they're importing from Canada to beat U.S. drug prices. PhRMA subsequently pulled the plug on the deal. |
| US: Watchdog group says company manipulated study of asthma drug Serevent to lower appearance of fatal risk by Roni Rabin, New York Newsday October 7th, 2005 A consumer watchdog group has accused the makers of a popular asthma drug of manipulating safety data submitted to the FDA two years ago to create the impression the drug Serevent is safer than it is. |
| US: California Accuses Drug Companies of Fraud by John M. Broder, The New York Times August 26th, 2005 LOS ANGELES, Aug. 25 - The attorney general of California sued 39 drug companies on Thursday, accusing them of bilking the state of hundreds of millions of dollars by overcharging for medicines. |
| US: Vioxx Verdict Raises Profile of Texas Lawyer by Alex Berenson, The New York Times August 22nd, 2005 Merck is found liable for the death of Robert C. Ernst, who died in 2001 after taking Merck's painkiller Vioxx for eight months. The jury awarded $253.5 million to Carol Ernst, Mr. Ernst's widow and Mr. Lanier's client, in one of the largest damage awards ever to a single plaintiff. |
| US: Drug Industry Creates Voluntary Ad Guidelines by Jennifer Corbett Dooren, Dow Jones August 3rd, 2005 Responding to increased criticism from Congress, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, announced a set of voluntary guidelines aimed at governing the way drugs are advertised to consumers. |
| US: Justices Uphold Taking Property for Development
by Linda Greenhouse, New York Times June 24th, 2005 The Supreme Court ruled, in one of its most closely watched property rights cases in years, that fostering economic development is an appropriate use of the government's power of eminent domain. |
| US: Pharmaceutical Giant Will Curb Ads Aimed at Patients Associated Press June 15th, 2005 Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. won't push new drugs in that way for at least a year. The change comes amid criticism of the industrywide practice. |
| INDIA: Medical Companies Joining Offshore Trend, Too by Andrew Pollack, The New York Times February 24th, 2005 The relentless shifting of employment to countries like India and China that has occurred in manufacturing, back-office work and computer programming is now spreading to a crown jewel of corporate America: the medical and drug industries. |
| INDIA: Fighting Big Pharma in Little Digwal by Stan Cox, Counterpunch February 15th, 2005 In this 50-mile-long stretch of rural India west of Hyderabad, the country's fifth largest city, almost 40 percent of the country's bulk pharmaceuticals are produced (a large proportion of them for export). The progress the the people of Digwal have made in protecting themselves against the industry's wastes puts them in a league of their own. |
| US: Tauzin Raised Six-Figure Sum From Drug Makers
by Steven Weiss, Center for Responsive Politics December 15th, 2004 The New Head of PhRMA Enjoyed the Financial Support of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers While in Congress |
| US: Pension Fund of New York Files Suit Against Merck by Barry Meier, The New York Times December 9th, 2004 The main pension fund of New York State filed a federal lawsuit yesterday against Merck & Company, accusing it of misleading shareholders about the safety of its arthritis pain drug Vioxx, which has since been withdrawn. |
| USA: Drug Companies Pushing ADHD Drugs for Children by Kelly Hearn, Alternet November 29th, 2004 As public scrutiny of drug companies grows, so do questions about what critics say is a vast over-prescribing of MPH, especially as more adults are taking other MPH-based medicines such as Concerta. Many in and outside the scientific community suspect the dubious marketing tactics of big drug money have fueled the spiraled use of MPH. |
| US: Merck Steps Up Public Relations Campaign After Recall by Theresa Agovino, Associated Press November 22nd, 2004 Merck & Co.'s campaign to defend itself in the wake of the recall of the pain reliever Vioxx intensified as it placed a package of three full-page ads in seven prominent newspapers beginning last Friday. |
| EUROPE: EU names biggest polluters in Europe by Rikki Stancich, http://www.ethicalcorp.com/content.asp?ContentID=2917 October 13th, 2004 |
| US: Questions on the $3.8 Billion Drug Ad Business by Stuart Elliot and Nat Ives, New York Times October 13th, 2004 Drug advertising can not only misleading, but harmful to your health. |
| AUSTRALIA: Bullying big pharma puts pressure on Australians by Tony Walker, Australian Financial Review, 8/13/2004 |
| US: How Schering Manipulated Drug Prices And Medicaid
New York Times July 31st, 2004 $345.5 million settlement by Schering-Plough to resolve a government Medicaid investigation provides a detailed glimpse into how drug companies can manipulate prices to overcharge state and federal programs. |
| USA: Looking To Canada, Not Candidates, For Prescription Drugs by Terry M. Neal and Christina Pino-Marina, Washington Post July 21st, 2004 |
| USA: Drugmakers Prefer Silence On Test Data by Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post July 6th, 2004 |
| US: A Record Year for Shareholder Activism by G. Jeffrey MacDonald, Christian Science Monitor June 28th, 2004 Question: What single force can get Tyco International to strive for cleaner emissions, inspire PepsiCo to study the impact of AIDS in developing nations, and even get Merck & Co. to declare its intentions to not manufacture an abortion pill? Answer: shareholders. |
| US: As Doctors Write Prescriptions, Drug Companies Write Checks
by Gardiner Harris , New York Times June 27th, 2004 A broad government crackdown on the drug industry's marketing tactics. |
| US: Medco Health to Settle Complaints Associated Press April 27th, 2004 In a case that could alter how prescriptions are filled, the nation's largest pharmacy benefits manager said Monday that it would pay $29 million to settle allegations by 20 states, including California, that it pressured doctors to switch patients' medications to benefit its bottom line. |
| US: Strengthening Bones, Raising Questions by Denise Gellene, New York Times April 23rd, 2004 Last fall, the National Kidney Foundation for the first time set treatment guidelines to prevent a complication from kidney failure that causes damage to bones. The guidelines were tough, and there was no drug on the market that would easily help a patient meet them. |
| UK: Pharmaceutical Firms May Be US Cash Cow The Guardian January 8th, 2004 GlaxoSmithKline still arguing with the American tax authorities about its liability for the years 1989 to 1996. |
| USA: Cynical Politics and the Global HIV/AIDS Emergency by Bill Fletcher Jr., FinalCall.com News August 6th, 2003 National Public Radio (NPR) recently reported on the dramatic increase of HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean. This story reminds one that fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS is directly related to overcoming poverty and challenging globalization. It also reminds one that cynical politics are afoot on the part of those in power more concerned with corporate profits than with the misery of millions. |
| USA: Drug Patents Draw Scrutiny as Bush Goes to Africa by Michael Schroeder, The Wall Street Journal July 9th, 2003 In a five-Nation African tour this week, President Bush is trumpeting his $15 billion program to fight the continent's AIDS epidemic. But that program's gains could be undercut by a separate U.S. effort to impose strict drug-patent protections that make AIDS drugs more expensive and harder to obtain. The Commerce Department is helping shape patent laws in developing countries such as Nigeria -- where Mr. Bush will visit Saturday -- that go beyond global standards in protecting drug makers. The U.S. Trade Representative's office is seeking similarly strict protections in developing nations world-wide. |
| USA: Bush Delivers Emergency AIDS Relief to Republican Allies by John Tarleton, Indy Media Center July 3rd, 2003 George W. Bush signed a five-year, $15 billion global AIDS relief bill to much fanfare last week in advance of the G8 Summit in Evian, France. Besides giving Bush a PR boost, the measure may turn out to be of more help to U.S. pharmaceutical companies, faith-based religious groups and the biotech industry than to the citizens of 14 African and Caribbean countries covered by the initiative. |
| South Africa: Indigenous Group Wins Rights to its Healing Herbs by Mercedes Sayagues, Inter Press Service March 28th, 2003 ANDRIESVALE, South Africa, Mar. 28 (IPS) -- In a victory for indigenous groups, a landmark profit-sharing agreement has been signed providing credit and compensation to one of South Africa's oldest groups with extensive traditional knowledge of healing plants and herbs. |
| USA: Pharmaceutical Company Whistle-Blower Tells of 'Illegal' Tactics by Liz Kowalczyk, Boston Globe March 12th, 2003 David Franklin, the drug company whistle-blower who has sparked federal and state investigations into the marketing of the top-selling drug Neurontin, said yesterday that he and his former colleagues engaged in a series of inappropriate tactics, including misleading doctors to persuade them to prescribe the drug for unapproved uses. |
| USA: Bush Blocks Cheap Drugs for World's Poor by Charlotte Denny, Guardian/UK February 19th, 2003 George Bush's close links with the drugs industry were last night blamed for the failure of talks in Geneva aimed at securing access to cheap medicines for developing countries. |
| Brazil: Hopes Lift at WTO Drugs Talks by Bayan Rahman, Financial Times February 17th, 2003 Brazilian proposal at the weekend has raised hopes of a breakthrough in the World Trade Organisation's deadlocked talks on poor ountries' access to essential medicines. |
| USA: Drug Industry Poised to Reap Political Dividends by Vicki Kemper, Los Angeles Times November 8th, 2002 Few industries campaigned harder than pharmaceutical manufacturers to elect Republicans to the new Congress, and few industries are better positioned to reap the rewards of the election returns, analysts said Thursday. |
| USA: Feds Pushing Toxic Anthrax Drug? by Elliot Borin, Wired.com October 24th, 2002 Many veterans' advocates believe a certain anthrax vaccine to be a major cause of Gulf War sickness. The company manufacturing it has launched a massive lobbying campaign to persuade the Bush administration to stockpile the controversial drug so it can be administered to civilians. |
| World: AIDS Activists Mobilize Against Coca-Cola by Jim Lobe, OneWorld US October 17th, 2002 AIDS activists are preparing rallies and demonstrations Thursday in several cities around the world to protest against global soft-drink giant Coca-Cola, which they charge must do more to help and treat its HIV-infected workers and their families in sub-Saharan Africa. |
| USA: Hormone Replacement Only the Tip of the Iceberg by Lynn Landes, AlterNet July 31st, 2002 The HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) scandal is bigger than most think. It's not just about menopausal women, like me, getting bad information from their physicians and the pharmaceutical industry for over 40 years, while the federal government stood by and did nothing. The scandal is much bigger than that. |
| USA: Hormonal Outrage at Pharmaceuticals by Sharon Lerner, Village Voice July 16th, 2002 Last week, after its findings revealed that the combination of hormones taken by some 6 million women was doing more harm than good, causing an increase in heart attacks, breast cancer, blood clots, and strokes, a national study was halted mid-stream. Wyeth, which has raked in more than $2 billion a year from its top-selling hormone therapies is now watching its stock price dive. |
| Kenya: HIV Drug Shortages 'Critical' IRINNEWS.org April 9th, 2002 JOHANNESBURG -- A severe shortage of two antiretrovirals (ARVs) produced by leading pharmaceutical Bristol-Myers Squibb in Kenya, could have critical repercussions for patients, says Medecines sans Frontieres (MSF). |
| US: Lobbyists Try to Insert Special Interests in Bioterrorism Bill by Robert Pear, The New York Times December 11th, 2001 In the final hectic days before Congress adjourns for the year, lobbyists are swarming around the Capitol, trying to adorn a bill on bioterrorism with all sorts of special-interest provisions. |
| Bayer Won't Pull Poultry Antibiotics BayerWatch.com November 1st, 2001 Recent threats of bioterrorism have highlighted how important it is to safeguard the effectiveness of America's antibiotics supply. But when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently proposed a ban on the use of certain antibiotics to treat sick chickens and turkeys, Bayer Corporation refused to comply. |
| India: Kerala to Protect Tribal Intellectual Property Rights by Liz Mathew, Indo Asian News Service September 22nd, 2001 NEW DELHI -- The Kerala government has decided to introduce legislation to protect the intellectual property rights of its tribespeople who have been practising traditional nature-based medicine for centuries. |
| UN: African Leaders Say Debt Hampers Fight Against AIDS by Lewis Machipisa, Inter Press Service June 25th, 2001 African leaders used the opening of the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV-AIDS Monday to assail the international community's response to the deadly epidemic for failing to match the speed and seriousness with which the disease is infecting their citizens. Official after official rose to drive home the message that the death of more than 20 million people, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, demands that more money be committed to the fight. |
| South Africa: Drug Companies Drop AIDS Suit by Ravi Nessman, Associated Press April 19th, 2001 In a move activists hoped would lead to a flood of affordable AIDS medication to Africa, the pharmaceutical industry dropped its suit Thursday challenging a South African law many say would allow the government to import or produce generic versions of the drugs. |
| USA: The Pharmaceutical Industry Stalks the Corridors of Power by Julian Borger, The Guardian Unlimited February 13th, 2001 In this pantheon of corporate muscle, no industry wields as much power as the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA), a pressure group breathtaking for its deep pockets and aggression, even by the standards of US politics. |
| USA: Ten Worst Corporations of 2000 by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Focus on the Corporation January 3rd, 2001 Here is the annual Top 10 Worst Corporations of 2000 list compiled by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman. This year, rushing to the head of the pack of irresponsible biotech companies was the French corporation Aventis, the maker of Cry9C corn, sold under the name StarLink. |
| USA: Health Care Firms Spend Big to Head Off Reforms by Jeff Leeds, Los Angeles Times July 23rd, 2000 With billions of dollars in profits on the line, the health care industry is waging the largest national advertising campaign ever conducted by a political special interest, with a price tag for the election cycle that could approach $90 million--more than either of the major presidential candidates is expected to spend. |
| South Africa: AIDS Protestors Picket Pfizer Associated Press June 26th, 2000 JOHANNESBURG, South Africa About 100 picketers demonstrated Monday outside the offices of the Pfizer drug company, saying its offer of free treatment for an AIDS-related brain infection was insufficient. |
| UK: A Bitter Pill for the World's Poor by Isabel Hilton, The Guardian January 5th, 2000 It is a story repeated daily in towns and villages across the developing world. Whatever the recorded cause of death - leishmaniasis, tuberculosis, pneumonia - the real cause is poverty. Poor people in tropical countries are at risk from a range of diseases for which they cannot get treatment - either because medicines are available at prices they cannot afford or, worse still, because no medicines are available. |
| US: Merck Research Plant Chemicals Kill Fish in Pennsylvania Federal Authorities Say
by Deborah Yao, The Associated Press Drugmaker Merck & Co.'s research facility in West Point dumped a chemical compound that included cyanide into the sewer system, killing more than 1,000 fish in Wissahickon Creek, federal authorities said Thursday. |