Well we knew it was the case all along but this week there are emails released as part of Vioxx litigation in Australia against the drug company Merck related to Vioxx induced heart attacks, that show that Merck drew up a “hit list” of doctors in academia whose opinions about Vioxx were negative in order to “neutralise” or “discredit” them (their words, not mine). One of the emails stated:

We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live

In other words, use influence and intimidation to block their promotion, remove their research funding, or threaten their universities with such tactics. Some doctors get death threats and letters are sent to their deans, or their deans get phone calls. As I have written previously, Hoffmann La Roche Pharmaceuticals didn’t like my opinion about their acne drug Accutane and depression, and went to great lengths to discredit me. One attorney who came onto the scene late said it was a “cautionary tale” and another one said that they did that in order to make an example, so that noone in the future would say negative things about their drugs.

So what you have is a picture where drug companies shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars to key academic physician leaders to buy their good will, and those whom they can’t buy off they try to destroy.

Find out where they live and destroy them!

 Hat tip to Marilyn Mann.

[update: video of "V-squad" training video of super heroes used to train Vioxx sales team posted here.]

That’s a translation into person speak from a letter I got today from Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals that started out with “Dear Healthcare Professional” and went on to their new “black box warning” for their antibiotic drugs Avelox (moxifloxacin hydrochloride) and Cipro (ciprofloxacin). Here is their warning:

Fluoroquinolones, including Avelox/Cipro, are associated with an increased risk of tendinitis and tendon rupture in all ages. This risk is further increased in older patients usually over 60 years of age, in patients taking corticosteroid drugs, and in patients with kidney, heart or lung transplants.

Well it’s about time. I wrote about this nasty habit of cipro to snap tendons and mess up joints over a year ago in my book because at the time Cipro was the most poorly rated drug on askthepatient.com. I hate to say I told you so, but, I did tell you so. It’s just too bad that it took the manufacturers a couple of years to get the word out. I wish people in the healthcare industry would read these websites, which patients go to only out of desperation.

Unfortunately, 81% of the time this toxic drug, Cipro is prescribed inappropriately, and 32% of women get this drug inappropriately for new onset urinary tract infections, when the preferred first drug is Septra.

Another drup in the same class as Cipro is Levaquin, which is the third most discussed drug on medications.com, just behind my other two faves, Yasmin (the birth control pill that might make you nuts) and Singulair (asthma drug with similar problems). Levaquin and like drugs also seems to drive people nuts, which reinforces my conclusion that when it comes to drug companies, if they don’t kill you they might drive you crazy.

So let’s all sing “I need a drug that won’t drive me crazy” to the tune of I need a lover that won’t drive me crazy,” by John Cougar Mellencamp.

[originally posted November 8, 2008]

[updated Feb 15, 2009]

See site of a patient suffering from long term effects of Levaquin “Death by Levaquin.”