Died.

Yes, there are small, medium and large businesses. Small Businesses are different to medium which are different to large. There is no need to pretend they are the same.

So considering my question [iis as valid as asking who would you trust to research and develop new medicines: GSK or a local GP?[/i and i have given a valid and accepted answer. Can you answer my question?

My career is not as important as my life. My health is not a business. My life is not for profit. Frankly if you were to sell something not in that companies best interest to someone because it made you a little extra money, I would think you were a bit of a dick, but it would pale in to insignificance compared to a Drug company paying Dr’s to prescribe a drug, which didn’t best treat that patients symptoms, wasn’t cleared to be used for those symptoms, and was cleared for use for the symptoms it was used for using incomplete and cherry picked Data. People, literally and directly have died because of the behaviour of Big Pharma. Because of their chasing of profits, people who would otherwise be alive aren’t

So for them, the pharma industry has worked quite well. Much better than if it wasn't in place.



Why did you only answer one of seven questions in that paragraph?



Of course I would go to my GP for a prescription. I can't believe you really thought that was a question worth asking.



In an earlier post you were stressing how we should trust a doctor to prescribe us medicine. Now you want to stress that they're corruptible to the point that they prescribe drugs that didn’t best treat that patients symptoms, wasn’t cleared to be used for those symptoms, and was cleared for use for the symptoms it was used for using incomplete and cherry picked Data and people have died because of their willingness to accept (presumably illegal, bribery does tend to be illegal) payment from companies simply to earn more money. I wouldn't do that with IT infrastructure so I am disturbed to find doctors are so corruptable.
Perhaps I'll seek another alternative to a GP or a sales rep.

He was on drugs until he had them sequestrated.

Just been updating myself on poor old Roy Lynk who returned his well deserved OBE after feeling betrayed by the establishment who greased his palm with 30 pieces of silver.
Bless.

No, because as has been proven, Big Pharma aren’t responsible for the majority for medicinal breakthroughs. Jonas Salk cured Polio, he did so as a researcher in a university in a government funded programme. The fact people now don’t have polio isn’t down to Big Pharma, it is down to the academia and the US government. The fact Eli Lilly made lots and lots of money from Jonas Salk’s work and US government funding and orders, that’s down to Big Pharma. Im pretty glad I don’t have Polio. Im not really bothered that Eli Lilly made a lot of money.

Because that one answer covered them all. Im not discussing small business, I am completely neutral in this conversation regards them. The How, what, Where etc are irrelevant. We are discussing big business, Small business is separate and in this case pretty irrelevant.


Why would you do this? You GP works for the NHS, a government agency. You advised earlier that we should never trust them. So why would you trust your Dr a government worker? Why would you trust your Dr to provide you with the right drug, but not the state to develop the right drug?

Well actually no. What I was highlighting was the difference between the UK and the US, where in the US medicine is run for profit, where Dr’s will prescribe treatments that make them money. In the UK this is less possible. It is far less possible precisely because of State interference. The state you are advising we shouldn’t trust.

You are protected from these excesses of Big Pharma because we have an NHS. US Dr’s were more corruptible because they don’t. State interference you called against is what means you don’t need to go find another GP.

So if they're not responsible for the breakthrough, why are the gov giving them a patent on the medicine? Or is something else creating a single supplier monopoly?


No it didn't.
Where and how do you differentiate between small, medium and large businesses? Why do you think different sizes of business behave differently? After all, they're still just people running them. If you say we're discussing just big business and not small business and medium business, you really should show how you define the different sizes, and why you think they behave differently at different sizes, if they do behave differently.
BTW, I would be more inclined to trust a big business with shareholders and public perception to worry about, than a sole trader.


Can you show me a serious post I made where I said I wouldn't trust a doctor and didn't believe the state should have any role in drug development?


No, you were condemning millions of doctors and people throughout the world as if they would let you die to earn a few more pence. It's a poor view of people and humanity you have.

Conservative fiscal ideology.

You can trust who you like. Im neither arguing in favour nor against big business in relation to small businesses, Simply saying they are different and small business is not relevant here.

Considering your response to me saying that government should have the role of developing and prescribing drugs was that.

No I was describing a specific case, an actual and documented thing that happened. Where numerous times, even whilst knowingly being investigated for it, a Big Pharma company offered inducements to Doctors (in America) to prescribe a certain drug even if not the best, for off-label uses, that same company has been found to use misleading and cherry picked statistics. That company was fined $3Billion for its actions. In other cases it paid fines for not disclosing information it held regarding drugs which caused heart attacks. $1billion of this fine was not for any civil claim, but criminal culpability.

This isn’t unique to GSK. AStrazeneca, Eli Lilly, and Johnson and Johnson have all billions of dollars in fines for doing the same thing. It is estimated that $2billion dollars have been paid by Big Pharma to individual Dr’s to prescribe drugs for uses they aren’t valid for and just to the top 20 cases in the US have resulted in fines of $20billion. Yet these companies are still profitable.

At least argue a point here, if you've gone one.


But still not saying where the limits are or why you think one size behaves differently to another.


Was it? I've kind of lost track. Was this the thread where you claimed the world economy was zero sum?



Well what evil ers those GPs are. Prescribing the wrong resolution for payment. I wouldn't do it with an IT infrastructure, so to hear doctors are so uncaring is quite a shock.
Should GP practices be considers big or small business?

GPS practices in the US are part of some pretty Fsking huge businesses. Thankfully in the UK state control (in the main) has kept us largely from the evil the free market perpetuated in this industry

The Dr's are indeed wrong to do what they did. But if Microsoft for instance were to offer you $500'000 to recommend their product for a use it didn't advertise was part of its capability, but they promised you it was capable of this and provided reams of documentation to back it up would you do it?

Regardless, the Dr's part of the illegal kickback scheme had nothing to do with Merck for example, withholding their data on Vioxx for five years resulting in up to 140'000 cases of serious heart disease nor was it the Dr's who spent $1b fighting the action.

Let's look at that again just to make sure it sinks in. And just add none of this is now disputed. Big Pharma company Merck developed a drug called Rofecoxib (marketed as vioxx) for 5 years they knew that this drug caused serious heart disease. For 5 years they sold Vioxx knowing it caused serious heart problems. The made about $2.5billion per year from selling a drug they knew caused serious heart disease. Merck made, during that time, $12.5billion from selling a drug they knew caused heart disease. During this time up to 140'000 had a heart attack because of it. It is estimated up to 40% of those were fatal.
Merck has spent $1billion fighting wrongful death cases because it's behaviour. It has set aside $5billion for compensation for the up to 60'000 people who died. They had a list of Dr's who had voiced concern about vioxx they set out to discredit. Merck employees sent e-mails about those Dr's saying "We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live,"www.theaustralian.com.au/news/drug-company-drew-up-doctor-hit-list/story-e6frg6n6-1225693586492

How many more examples would you need to understand that the medicinal market just doesn't work and free market theory is simply not applicable to some industries?

For those on the pseudo-left who prefer to reinvent history and blame Arthur because they didn't have the bollox to stand up and be counted.

WE TOLD ARTHUR - NO SURRENDER

[urlhttp://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/paul-routledge-miners-can-stand-3006531[/url

I can't do the fancy talk about the big pharma companies but I can comment on experience. I took part in a clinical trial for my RA at Chappell Allerton Hospital in Leeds for 5 years. I did it for a number of reasons, the main reason was because I had run out of drugs to try at Hull and the other important reason was I thought (and still think) that I gave the pharma company valuable information on how their drug works on me and my disease. Its a slow process, apparently it takes at least 15-20 years for a drug to be developed, tried, tested, approved and prescribed.

I was also on Vioxx from being diagnosed for quite a few years, apparently it was the drug of choice for rheumatology patients, but I was taken off it as soon as it became known in this country about the side effects which I didn't suffer any.

There is no known cure for RA but the therapies that have evolved since I was diagnosed is huge. I have tried 6 different drugs known as biologics and each different one has targeted a different area of the immune system and each one coming a step nearer to halting the disease in its tracks rather than treating the symptoms. I believe a cure will be found in my lifetime.

I see the comments by Americans that their Rheumatologist will only prescribe one drug and one drug only as they get a kickback from the pharma company and I just thank my lucky stars that we don't have the same system over here (or not one that gets so blatently banded about in front of the patient anyway).

What all this has to do with Arthur Scargill I have no idea, but just wanted to put my two penn'oth in

Back on topic - very interesting programme on citizen Arthur on inside/out on BBC north last night.

Seems even his own devotees are turning against him. Forging a letter from a dying man that is pretty low ball behaviour.

Some pretty damming accusations against him and his small troika. A massive slush fund from which the top NUM echelon awarded themselves loans, whilst the rank and file batted out a year on strike. His autocratic and secretive decision that he was entitled to a Redundancy package, and without informing, far less obtaining permission from the NUM, writes himself a large cheque in excess of £200k! And what about the hundreds of thousands he's cost the NUM over his antics with that London flat? The very same flat that he tried to buy under Maggie thatcher's Right to Buy legislation, whilst conveniently ignoring the fact it was owned by the NUM!

You have to have a measure of sympathy for the thousands who placed their faith in this guy, and years later find it was their own Union leaders, noses firmly wedged in a Animal Farm stylee in the NUM trough, who royally ed them up the booty.

Maggie must be wetting herself up there......

She wet herself when she got turfed out of No10.
Did you see the blubbering damsel?
Good old Art set the ball rolling.
Even a sacrificial lamb, as such, of the left.

But we got there.

There are side effects to every drug - I take a number for a heart condition and you can hardly get the pills in the packets for the list of side effects. Viagra was a drug discovered from a side effect

The questions about Vioxx:
1. Did the benefits of the drug outweigh the negatives i.e. did it helps millions - given the size of the sale it must have been widely used. There are plenty of drugs out there with some bad side effects.
2. How many of the 140k had heart attacks as a result of taking the drug and how many would have had them anyway?
3. The question must be asked of the licencing authorities as how a drug with such known side-efects got to market plenty fail at that stage - or did the side effects emerge post general use? Did the drug ever get licenced here?

Only one loser in that battle and it wasn't Maggie!!

As long as she's resting peacefully now, that's the main.

Vioxx I think is now licensed again, but now with the side-effects described, and is not often now prescribed. The 140k cases of heart disease were those estimated to be attributed to Vioxx rather than simply general heart disease.

Merck were aware of the issue, they hid their findings and systematically intimidated and attacked those doctors and researchers who tried to bring it to light, that's why it took five years for the truth to be found out.

Drugs do have side effects, however those side effects are part of the prescription decision. What Merck did wrong wasn't that they created a drug which helped some but had a risk of heart attack, but that it hid this risk which meant that it was prescribed to some it shouldn't and offered kickbacks to doctors to prescribe this drug ahead of others whilst hiding this risk but also for symptoms it has never been licensed for

The FDA must take some blame here - 80 million people were prescribed this drug 99% of which suffered no side effects and probably enjoyed a much improved standard of 'living' i.e. reduced pain. Merck did hide some the side effects but what cannot be contested the drug did a lot more good than it did harm. If you asked the majority of the patients, knowing the potential side effects and the state of their health, I bet most would still have opted for the treatment.

To see Arthur the broken man he is made it all worth while. The man was only interested in one thing - Arthur, the miners were just puppets in his game. Sadly for Arthur he was outplayed, out thought and out manoeuvred by a far cleverer opponent. He was weighed, he was measured and he was found wanting.

By someone playing with a stacked deck...

That's like blaming the police for Harold Shipman and saying, well he was a good doctor to his patients besides the old lady's her murdered.

Most wouldn't take the treatment knowing the side effects, that's why once the drug was re-licensed most have stuck with a different treatment. We can easily analyse whether your statement is correct, if it were vioxx would be prescribed at similar levels to what it was pre scandal. It isn't, so they wouldn't. Because they didn't.

Your attempted justification of what Merck did, also shows the argument of why big Pharma is one of the industries where the free market simply cannot reign. It wasn't up to the FDA to catch them Merck lied and 60k people died. Merck exploited the limits of regulation and allowed people to die so they could make vast sums of money. The result of free market principles within the pharmaceutical industry is people who would otherwise have lived, dying. They simply cannot be trusted

It appears all his faculties are still pretty much working.
Not like that mad, starry, glazey eyed fooker who is being eaten by cockroaches and maggots as I type.
Mind, she was totally cuckoo well before she left parliament.
You'll even admit to that?

It is now historical fact that Thatcher lied, and communities died. It is fact they danced in the streets when she died. That is her legacy, When you and I are gone and historians look back, they will see a warmongering, poor hating, lying Prime Minister whose citizens danced on her grave, who made her party so nasty, and so hated that even a Global financial crisis and 17 years of Labour couldnt get her party re-elected. She will be the bogeyman of history, a modern King John. She may have won that battle, but she certainly lost the war and no amount of revisionism will change that.

It was 13 years of Labour, it just felt longer.
However, she did win, the only way she'd have lost is if she'd fallen down an open mine shaft in '84. She didn't, she beat the miners and Labour, it was her own party who showed her the door and when Labour won in '97, they lauded her and paraded her on the steps of No. 10.