Month: <span>February 2009</span>

You may think your pharmaceutical expenses and drug costs are high. They are.

Part of the reason is that drugs are made by corporations that must return value to shareholders. To do this, they must sell drugs. To sell drugs, pharmaceutical companies have paid doctors to promote their drugs. The money paid to doctors is an expense which increases the cost of drugs. That’s the business.

One step beyond the business, though, is corruption. At least one drug company has pleaded guilty for paying doctors to recommend drugs for diseases for which the drug was not approved. And there are new allegations the drug company may have known the drug was not even effective against the diseases for which it was being promoted.

That’s all background.

Pfizer Inc., the world’s biggest drugmaker and the company that created Neurontin, has said it will begin (next year) disclosing all payments of more than $500 it makes to doctors.

According to the MSNBC article, “Pfizer to disclose payments to doctors next year“, Pfizer is doing this “after introduction last month of legislation to require such disclosures, and revelations of astronomical payments to some doctors that were not revealed to universities and hospitals that employed them.” In other words, this is an example of another corporate entity becoming interested in transparency only after regulatory requirements change.

While politicians suggest this is a good move because there is so much public money that passes to drug companies, I believe the real value in this is that it makes transparent the relationship between a doctor and the medications the doctor prescribes.

Here’s what I like about it: suppose a doctor makes a presentation to an MS support group and talks extensively about one of the MS injection therapies and only mentions the others in passing.

Don’t you want to know whether the doctor is focusing on the one medication because he or she finds it really is the best medication and not because he or she is being paid to give a speech? As I wrote in September of 2007 in “MS Medication, Insurance Coverage and 2 Ounces of Gold“, I sure want to know!

Here’s why Pfizer’s decision to report these payments to doctors is important. Pfizer pleaded guilty in a legal settlement related to an accusation it had illegally paid doctors to prescribe Neurontin for uses not approved by the FDA. Pfizer paid penalties of $430 million for paying doctors to prescribe billions of dollars of Neurontin to patients with diseases for which there was no evidence of Neurontin’s effectiveness.

Newsweek has a good article that summarizes the Pfizer/Neurontin legal issues: “Pfizer’s Headache: Lawsuit charges drugmaker was deceptive about Neurontin.”

Pfizer’s behavior offers the clearest example of why transparency in the doctor/pharmaceutical company relationship is important.

Interesting to me is that while Pfizer paid $430 million (about one quarter’s sales of Neurontin), no physician was charged. I think this must be why: Doctors have to be able to trust the information they receive from pharmaceutical companies. Certainly, no physician with integrity would prescribe or promote a drug they did not believe to be effective.

Caregiver Tip: The quickest way to get to the point of this issue with a doctor about a prescription medication is to ask, “Do you receive money from the drug company that makes this medication?” Once that is on the table, you can then talk about whether or not the medication is being prescribed because your doctor really does believe it will be effective.

MS Information Sources MS Medications

“Doing Your Best When You Can’t Make It Better” has been the tagline of this blog since I started it. I think the tagline may express too much futility. Maybe I was having a bad day or month when I wrote it.

Today, I’m changing the tagline to something much more positive and more reflective of what the MSCaregiver blog has become: “Tips and Info for Multiple Sclerosis Caregivers”. The content will not change because of the new tagline. Nor will anything else about the blog change. I just realized I’m tired of the “can’t make it better” notion.

In fact, that initial phrase, “doing your best when you can’t make it better,” is the antithesis of what caregivers do. We do make it better. I know my wife is healthier and happier as a consequence of me doing my best to make things better. Her life is better.

New idea! The tagline will be, “Doing Your Best Does Make it Better“. I’ll try that for a while and see how it feels.

MS Caregiving

Read the CBS News report, “Treating MS Symptoms With Stem Cells: Promising Northwestern University Trial Uses Patient’s Own Stem Cells To Treat Symptoms Of Multiple Sclerosis

Today, the CBS News Early Show presented an interview with Edwin McClure, a young MS patient, who participated in a Northwestern University trail which involved using a patient’s own stem cells and chemotherapy. McClure’s family says he is “cured”. The researchers describe the trial as a treatment of symptoms. Either way, the results presented look very promising. This is definitely a study to keep our eyes on.

Here’s a link to information about the study on the ClinicalTrials.gov website: http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00273364

MS Treatment Reasons for Hope

Researchers Disprove 15-year-old Theory about the Nervous System

(PhysOrg.com) — A delay in traffic may cause a headache, but a delay in the nervous system can cause much more. University of Missouri researchers have uncovered clues identifying which proteins are involved in the development of the nervous system and found that the proteins previously thought to play a significant role, in fact, do not. Understanding how the nervous system develops will give researchers a better understanding of neurological diseases, such as multiple sclerosis and Charcot-Marie-Tooth disorders.

Etiology of MS Reasons for Hope

In the Health section of PhysOrg.com is an article titled, “How to … avoid burnout

Burnout – a state of mental, physical and emotional exhaustion — leaves people feeling hopeless about the future. While the focus of the article is on workaholism, the tips from therapists on staying healthy in stressful environments are perfect for caregivers.

For example, one tip is, “Nurture your spirit. Do something just for yourself, whether it’s listening to music, exercising, getting a massage, reading or writing in a journal.” It’s a quick read that may remind you that putting on your own oxygen mask first is important.

Caregiver Tip: Remember to keep yourself in good health, clear minded, and emotionally healthy. You cannot care for others if you do not care for yourself.

Caring for Yourself