Marcia Angell, Lady Warrior

Dr. Angell continues her pounding of Big Pharma with her article in the June 6 New York Review of Books. She reminds us that Merck knew that Vioxx was linked to heart attacks even as it relentlessly marketed the drug to doctors and to us. That's us as in U.S., the only advanced country except New Zealand that allows TV commercials for prescription drugs. She reminds us that many of the FDA advisory people commissioned to protect us against dangerous drugs are associated with the drug companies who market the stuff. And market they do. Conventions and trips and cute office gee gaws for physicians; the promise of a pain-free nirvana for the arthritic. Her articles in the NY Review and her pieces as former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine are must reads (abstract only without a subscription, uinfortunately).

And while I'm at it, a tip of the hat to the Republican legislators who so very consideratly protected these very same pharmaceutical companies' marketing budgets by forbidding drug price negotiation under the recent Medicare Part D (for Damned?) legistlation.