Senate probes painkiller makers, allied groups

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON | Wed May 9, 2012 2:14pm EDT

(Reuters) - A Senate panel has launched a probe of possible links between three drugmakers and nonprofit medical groups that advocated for increasing the use of prescription painkillers, now the target of a nationwide law enforcement crackdown.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Democrat, and the panel's leading Republican, Senator Chuck Grassley, said the drugmakers and allied groups could be behind dubious marketing practices that have coincided with a huge jump in deadly overdoses from painkillers known as opioids.

"These painkillers have an important role in health care when prescribed and used properly, but pushing misinformation on consumers to boost profits is not only wrong, it's dangerous," Baucus said in a statement.

Baucus and Grassley said they sent letters to drugmakers Johnson & Johnson's Janssen Pharmaceuticals unit, Endo Pharmaceuticals and Purdue Pharma and seven medical groups seeking documents about their financial connections.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/09/us-usa-painkillers-investigation-idUSBRE84811420120509

[xtraxritical]

1. There's no shortage of "Dr. Feelgoods" ready to play the pain killer game too.

Medicare picks up most of the tab for this bull shit and can't negotiate either.

[jwirr]

3. Yes, my grandson had his hip broken in six places. We told the doctor that he was addicted to

pain killers but what did they continue to give him? The same one we told them about. He got perscriptions for at least a year afterwards. Pushers.

[Vincardog]

2. The only role I want the Government to have in my medical care is to insure it is Safe and effective

and to pay for it. Universal single payer now.

[antigone382]

4. I consider this making sure that it is safe and effective.

Preventing pharmaceutical companies from pushing dangerous and addictive drugs on vulnerable populations through lobbying and misinformation is in the interest of public health. I don't want people in pain to be denied relief, but I also live in an area where peoples' lives have been totally destroyed by prescription drug addiction.

I am totally against the drug war, but these are billion dollar corporations pushing their products on the poorest and weakest members of society. There needs to be something to balance that out.

[Trillo]

5. Is this a patent medicine redux? n/t