Comments on: Analogies for Yoo: The Merck Scandal

By: nolo

nolo — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 21:24:36 +0000

heh — i hear ya’, EW.
between us, there would
likely be some goose-pimple-
raising stories (over root-beers), no?

now, if anyone actually looks
this far down into EPU-land, i
will note that merck releases its
Q1 earnings monday (before the open);
it ought to be a gore-fest, about the
vytorin ’scripts being way off — then,
on wed., schering-plough will follow suit,
running down its Q1.

and, that ought to be entertaining, if
nothing else — it’s a pill that costs
four-times the generic, but does not work as
well (or at all!) to improve outcomes (heart-
attack-rate reduction, etc.), as the
generic. . . tremendous.

“welcome now, the pill-poppin’ public’s
plainly-populist-pushers — all bow. . . .”

p e a c e

By: KenMuldrew

KenMuldrew — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 22:30:36 +0000

It was widely known that cox-2 inhibitors were going to lead to cardio problems before vioxx was recalled (it’s also true that these drugs are really valuable for the right kind of patient). I remember someone presenting the early clinical trials at a journal club and everyone having a good chuckle over how they had labelled their controls as ”cardioprotective” so that the cox-2 inhibitor would seem to be inert. They didn’t actually hide the results, or fudge anything as far as I remember (certainly everyone at that journal club understood that this would be unsuitable for anyone with heart trouble), but by carefully parsing their words they were able to create a new reality (at least as far as regulatory oversight goes). They really captured the zeitgeist of our times…profit today no matter what the cost come tomorrow. What could one call it? Lebensprofits?

By: JohnLopresti

JohnLopresti — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:10:04 +0000

Besides governmentCo enhancing[1] science, select former officials can land pricey work in the gray extrajudicial zone overseeing court settlements[2]. I see Yoo’s errors mostly in falsification of ideology rather than making pretense at law, in BushCo’s framework this was kind of the advertising man’s rendition of martial law, and responses from individuals in the top levels of government were in visceral response mode until some pervasive sense the crisis had passed was abroad in the land, perhaps a tad like meson-antimeson oscillation @9supra, maybe part wave, part quantum shift. To me it was a given, once the source of the 9/11 terror plot was known, kind of like ChairmanMao writtten for peoples of Arabic countries, turned to skirmish at the New World economic engines.
____
[1] The science link is to the infamous case of Industrial BioTest, which falsified toxicology reports for worldwide clients in the 1980s, including many reports allowing pesticide license for sale in the US.
[2] The mediator implementer link is to an early report of the multimillion $ contract former AGAshcroftRecently signed in a medical devices settlement supervision arrangement.

By: emptywheel

emptywheel — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:01:21 +0000

Don’t know a lot about Merck and Schering. But my company consulted with Roche and Glaxo in the 90s. I know for a fact that one of their little purple pills had insignificant results on one of its clinical trials that got totally buried. So I pretty much presume these guys are corrupt as hell with their science.

By: MrWhy

MrWhy — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 19:43:21 +0000

The general point seems to be that the person/office asking for an opinion has a preferred slant to the opinion which will be produced. An area in which this is very common is environmental assessment. A development project will likely have an environmental impact. The developer is required to fund an environmental assessment of the project to determine environmental impacts of the project as proposed. The developer’s preferred outcome is rather obvious, but the party doing the assessment is not supposed to advocate for the project. Mitigation efforts may be included in the assessment. IANAEIA (I am not an expert in anything), so I don’t have an example to cite for you.

My understanding of the OLC is that they aren’t supposed to be advocates, but rather like a law student asked to analyze a case and argue where they see merits and weaknesses on both sides of the case.

By: JamesJoyce

JamesJoyce — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:55:26 +0000

I beginning to think people do not want to hear the truth…. Societal/Political dysfunctions usually precede a society’s downfall and eventual collapse. Not what I want for America!! “NSGH”

By: JamesJoyce

JamesJoyce — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:47:32 +0000

“Were we in the Middle Ages, we could stop debating whether evil “would” triumph. It has. But we are not powerless and unable to respond. We just have to accept how monumental the problems are that Cheney/Bush has created for us.”

We are facing the identical problems America’s founders faced, global imperialistic corpo-aristocrats whose current blatant usurpation of constitutional checks and balances under the color of law is made ever worse in that America’s founders provided remedy, which is not being followed by elected officials for a political reasons. The system has been gamed and we a waist deep in a stinking pile of dung, while some corporations are bailed out by taxpayers, others profit from war, Americans still die and oil makes more money than ever before. Now some states impose a “Life Tax” in the form of mandated health care by imposing a punitive tax consequence, using the tax code, taking your personal exemption away, if you fail to hand “your money” over to “tax exempt” health/insurance corporations. Go figure? I wonder what Jefferson would say?

By: JamesJoyce

JamesJoyce — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:24:11 +0000

What is the status of the corporate executives convicted in the oxycontin fiasco. A few months at the local federal phat farm to trim down while working out??

By: earlofhuntingdon

earlofhuntingdon — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:23:05 +0000

If I recall, that example was a standard, if dangerously effective example of lobbying by a former government official turned CEO. (Like Cheney at Halliburton.) In his first attempt at working in private business, Rumsfeld’s marketing through intimidating regulators displayed his contempt for ethics and the law, contempt he displayed more harmfully as SecDef. He also proved that Enron’s managers were using a tried and true model of executive leadership, not inventing a new one.

The current campaign to immunize corporations from the consequences of their behavior - via deeming FDA approval the equivalent of granting legal immunity from suit - is novel and audacious. It is a massive power grab, it could harm millions.

To use the analogy that describes the defining characteristic of the Bush regime, it’s not allowing the Rumsfeld fox in the FDA henhouse, it’s putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. It is making a harmful errant example the standard for institutional leadership. It is a complete moral, ethical and legal inversion.

Were we in the Middle Ages, we could stop debating whether evil “would” triumph. It has. But we are not powerless and unable to respond. We just have to accept how monumental the problems are that Cheney/Bush has created for us.

By: earlofhuntingdon

earlofhuntingdon — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:02:49 +0000

You mean I can’t accept a mega-corporation’s commercials as the truth, I can only accept them for the state of mind they want to inculcate in me?