{"id":9991,"date":"2009-09-03T18:09:21","date_gmt":"2009-09-03T18:09:21","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-09-03T18:09:21","modified_gmt":"2009-09-03T18:09:21","slug":"drug-companies-and-doctors-undermine-fda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2009\/09\/03\/drug-companies-and-doctors-undermine-fda\/","title":{"rendered":"Drug Companies and Doctors Undermine FDA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Improper &#8220;off-label promotion&#8221; is a form of fraud used by the pharmaceutical industry to increase profits by selling more drugs than necessary. &nbsp;Before a drug becomes available on the market FDA specifies the uses for which it is safe. &nbsp;Off-label promotion encourages using a product for non-FDA-approved purposes. &nbsp;Physicians may lawfully prescribe a drug for an off-label use. &nbsp;However, manufacturers are prohibited from promoting, or marketing a drug for uses other than FDA-approved uses.<\/p>\n<p>Pharmaceutical manufacturers practice a wide range of abusive activities that provide false and misleading information about the safety or efficacy of products for non-approved uses. &nbsp;For example, it was found by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services&#8217; Office of Inspector General that the drug corporations will use so-called &#8220;medical science liaisons&#8221; that present themselves falsely as scientific experts in a particular disease to promote off-label uses. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, manufacturers will pay physicians to &#8220;write&#8221; advocacy articles about off-label uses of products that are, in fact, written by the manufacturer. &nbsp;This practice is particularly insidious because the publication of such articles, in medical journals, for example, may be sufficient to qualify the off-label use for reimbursement by taxpayers.<\/p>\n<p>Financial harm to Medicare and Medi-Cal is only one problem caused by off-label promotion. &nbsp;<br \/>\n<br \/>Off-label promotion leads physicians to prescribe a product for a non-FDA-approved use based on false, misleading, and erroneous information, thus, patients suffer. &nbsp;Additionally, Americans rely on the FDA approval process to evaluate the safety and efficacy of pharmaceutical products. &nbsp;<br \/>\n<br \/>Off-label promotion strips away this trust.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Improper &#8220;off-label promotion&#8221; is a form of fraud used by the pharmaceutical industry to increase profits by selling more drugs than necessary. &nbsp;Before a drug becomes available on the market FDA specifies the uses for which it is safe. &nbsp;Off-label promotion encourages using a product for non-FDA-approved purposes. &nbsp;Physicians may lawfully prescribe a drug for an off-label use. &nbsp;However, manufacturers are prohibited from promoting, or marketing a drug for uses other than FDA-approved uses.<\/p>\n<p>Pharmaceutical manufacturers practice a wide range of abusive activities that provide false and misleading information about the safety or efficacy of products for non-approved uses. &nbsp;For example, it was found by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services&#8217; Office of Inspector General that the drug corporations will use so-called &#8220;medical science liaisons&#8221; that present themselves falsely as scientific experts in a particular disease to promote off-label uses. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, manufacturers will pay physicians to &#8220;write&#8221; advocacy articles about off-label uses of products that are, in fact, written by the manufacturer. &nbsp;This practice is particularly insidious because the publication of such articles, in medical journals, for example, may be sufficient to qualify the off-label use for reimbursement by taxpayers.<\/p>\n<p>Financial harm to Medicare and Medi-Cal is only one problem caused by off-label promotion. &nbsp;<br \/>\n<br \/>Off-label promotion leads physicians to prescribe a product for a non-FDA-approved use based on false, misleading, and erroneous information, thus, patients suffer. &nbsp;Additionally, Americans rely on the FDA approval process to evaluate the safety and efficacy of pharmaceutical products. &nbsp;<br \/>\n<br \/>Off-label promotion strips away this trust.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3238,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[7809,7811,7810],"class_list":["post-9991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-22","tag-7809","tag-7811","tag-7810"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-2B9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}