Pfizer
Remember those Pfizer drug commercials for Lipitor featuring Dr. Robert Jarvik, the guy who created the artificial heart and uses Lipitor? He’s rowing a boat in the commercial and talks about discussing Lipitor with your doc because Dr. Jarvik uses it himself. Well, surprise surprise: Dr. Jarvik didn’t start using Lipitor until he was hired by Pfizer and he’s not even rowing the boat in the commercial! Lazy.
Under Congressional pressure, Pfizer pulled the ads in the spring. The House Energy and Commerce Committee suggested that the ad presents Dr. Jarvik as a medical expert, when he has only really worked on creating the artificial heart valve. (That sounds pretty medical expert-like to me, but Jarvik is actually a medical researcher and doesn’t have a license to practice medicine and he’s never had one according to the Wall Street Journal.) Soon after this hubabaloo reached the media, the president of Pfizer, Ian Read, said in a statement that “the way in which we presented Dr. Jarvik in these ads has, unfortunately, led to misimpressions and distractions from our primary goal of encouraging patient and physician dialogue on the leading cause of death in the world – cardiovascular disease. We regret this. Going forward, we commit to ensuring there is greater clarity in our advertising regarding the presentation of spokespeople in the statement.”
It’s fortunate that Pfizer has a president that isn’t afraid of the media and didn’t hide under his desk, waiting for the PR person to make it all go away. By giving a statement quickly after the ad hit the fan, Read saved the brand from suffering a major setback. Pfizer is still seen as shady to many consumers (just read other blogs and comments in newspapers around the country), but Pfizer is still making billions of dollars. So far, I haven’t seen any talk of a fine for Pfizer, but they’ve already had to pay over $450 million in fines so far in the 2000s, and that’s a low estimate.
Eli Lilly
Lilly is under fire for deceptive marketing practices of its top-selling drug, Zyprexa. Zyprexa is a schizophrenic drug that Lilly promoted to doctors to use for conditions other than schizophrenia. Lilly was trying to get as many prescriptions written for the drug as possible by touting its benefits for children, for the elderly with dementia and for recommending dosages higher than the FDA-approved levels.
Lilly has to pay $62 million to 32 states to settle the investigation. The settlement is the “largest-ever multistate consumer protection action against a drug company,” said Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter. (Lilly is based in Indianapolis.) The settlement is even bigger than the $58 million Merck & Co. had to pay for Vioxx claims. This isn’t the first time Lilly has had to pay for falsely advertising Zyprexa: they’ve already paid over $1 billion in addition to this latest settlement to settle claims by thousands of patients who allege the drug has harmful side effects like weight gain and diabetes.
What has false advertising gotten these two drug companies? Definitely not my trust. And they’ve lost a lot of money. Maybe not a whole lot to them, but enough to make a dent in their revenues. Lilly is currently trying to buy ImClone Systems to prevent itself from losing money in the next few years due to expiring patents. I’m no expert, but I don’t think I would trust Lilly’s check right now, would you?
I’m involved in this. My case is in one of the states listed but my attorney have not told me anything yet. I gained weight and got diabetes. I went from 140 lbs. to 277 lbs. and now am down to 207 lbs.. They knew about the side effects of zyprexa and just didn’t care. They just cared about how many people they can hurt and how much money they can make in the process. The Bush family is behind this zyprexa thing too. I printed some of the information about that off of the internet. All information about this whole zyprexa thing, I got from the internet. I’ve been reading and bookmarking information. They all think that we as victims are stupid. WE ARE NOT!!