Hi ,

When my doctor prescribes a drug for me, I want to be completely confident that she's aware of its pros and cons, especially the risks and types of side effects I might experience.

However, you may remember the horror stories about how Merck and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) suppressed negative studies about Vioxx and Paxil. And recently the FDA issued a safety alert about health risks associated with Avandia because independent researchers analyzed the results of clinical trials posted on the GSK website (Note: they were forced to publicize the results as part of a settlement with the state of New York after their problems with Paxil).

Prescription drugs can be life savers, but big problems arise when Big Pharma hides information about the side effects of some drugs while continuing to aggressively promote them. That has to change.

Let's tell Big Pharma that we want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about our prescription drugs.

http://www.uspirg.org/action/health-care/big-pharma?id4=ES

Then ask your friends and family to help out too by forwarding this email to them.

Background
When we watch television commercials on prescription drugs, it always ends with the long list of potential side effects. In the case of Vioxx, Paxil, Avandia and others, there were additional side effects that were not disclosed. In all three cases, the drug maker was aware of additional side effects.

In this email, I will focus on Vioxx. In future emails, I'll pick others. To best illustrate the problems with Vioxx, I've included some excerpts from a newspaper story about a 2005 congressional hearing on Vioxx.

-- Excerpted from the San Francisco Chronicle, May 6, 2005 --

HARD SELL: How Marketing Drives the Pharmaceutical Industry Firm misled doctors on Vioxx, panel says sales staff told not to discuss risk study

Merck & Co. trained its sales staff to mislead doctors in an aggressive campaign to boost prescriptions for its painkiller Vioxx despite evidence that the drug increased heart attack risks, according to a House committee analysis of company documents.

Vioxx, which was withdrawn from the market in September because of heart attack and stroke risks, built up sales topping $2 billion during a period when safety concerns were mounting among scientific experts and federal regulators, said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, at a hearing of the House Government Reform Committee on Thursday.

Doctors were induced to write millions of Vioxx prescriptions by Merck sales strategies that amounted to "disinformation and censorship," said Waxman, whose staff analyzed 20,000 documents related to the promotion of Vioxx.

A Food and Drug Administration official said Merck's practices weren't illegal. But the revelations could bolster moves by Congress to beef up the FDA's powers and possibly prove a bonanza to plaintiffs in civil suits against the drug giant claiming that Vioxx caused severe side effects, or death.

Sales representatives who visited physicians at their offices and hospitals were told to make spurious claims of superior cardiovascular safety for Vioxx, but they were forbidden to discuss Merck's own 2000 study linking the drug to heart attack risks five times greater than those with another painkiller, the report concluded.

Those sales practices continued while Merck was resisting the FDA's efforts to include a warning on Vioxx's label about cardiovascular dangers, according to the analysis.

...In the documents disclosed, Merck urged its 3,000 Vioxx salespeople to push the drug in campaigns tagged Project XXceleration and Project Offense, in which physicians' safety concerns were described as obstacles to sales that had to be overcome.

Sales representatives were offered $2,000 bonuses for making Vioxx sales goals and encouraged to compare their efforts to the struggles of historical figures like Martin Luther King Jr. -- a tactic that evoked outrage from Rep. Elijah Cummings, a black Democrat from Maryland.

---end excerpt---

Newspaper stories like this one help to illustrate that we have a problem.

To tell drug makers that you, your doctor and your family deserve the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about a drug, please click here:

http://www.uspirg.org/action/health-care/big-pharma?id4=ES

Sincerely,

Meshawn Ayala
Iowa PIRG Citizen Outreach Director
MeshawnA@iowapirg.org
http://www.IowaPIRG.org