What a surprise! Russell Williams of the lobby group Canada's Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies insists that "providing evidence-based information on new treatments" to our government is good news for patients.

Christmas has come early for Big Pharma with our government's puzzling decisions against the independent researchers at University of B.C.'s Therapeutics Initiative and in favour of Big Pharma marketing.

Despite Williams' optimism, the truth is that the drug industry spends more than twice as much on marketing their drugs every year as they do on research and development of new medications.

Then throw in industry scandals around medical ghostwriting, tainted industry-funded research, selective outcomes, data fishing, off-label (unapproved) drug marketing fraud convictions, criminal charges for drug company kickbacks to doctors, and so much more.

Consider the growing list of drug companies that have settled U.S. government investigations into health care fraud in the last few years, including Pfizer, which paid a record $2.3 billion (after pleading guilty to criminal charges); Eli Lilly, $1.4 billion (pleaded guilty); Allergan, $600 million (pleaded guilty); AstraZeneca, $520 million; Bristol-Myers Squibb, $515 million; Novartis, $422.5 million; and Forest Laboratories, $313 million (pleaded guilty).

This list reads like the Who's Who of Big Pharma, and these are the folks our government in its wisdom wants to invite in as its advisers.

Welcome to the wonderful world of what the New York Times recently described as "marketing-based medicine."

Carolyn Thomas

Victoria BC

Source:

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Letters+Pharmaceuticals+North+Korea+late+night+deer+politics/3894737/story.html