wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Should the Federal government have the control of the pharmaceutical industry by only endoring those drugs and procedures that are deemed "life saving" techniques by the American Medical Association?

calles
thanks for the correction. it was a typo.
i know about Lolo Soetoro. we know why Hussein was import to the white nationalist don't we? it just didn't work in time.
but my 79 referred to your 77. 77 went over the top. (i don't rant about fake birth certificates, so i don't need meds! but seeing where your ILK is going to take us i'll need something to get out of bed in the morning. but as long as you have money to get the yacht, i'll die happy)
can't go out i do have a job, unlike some people...
reagan had tsars. by the way tsar is not an official title so no one had tsars! but feel free to use it. hope u get what u want. NO TAXES, NO GOVERNMENT, NO NATION!

I feel like I'm about to be deleted by the PC police.

HJS.

Just correcting the spelling; after all we don't want to offend our dear beloved leader. He’s so sensitive... what is his name again? Kim Jung O'bama, Fidel O'bama, Adolph O'bama... oh, sorry Barack HUSSEIN Obama a/k/a Barry Soetoro (his last legal name when he was adopted, his name changed as he was raised by his Islamic step-father as an Islamic youth in Indonesia).

But, what’s in a name anyway? Remember just a few months ago we couldn't mention his alleged middle name of "Hussein" because it would link him to his almost entirely Arab and Islamic roots and family on his father's side. Yes, I said it, and what a tremendous manipulation and lie that was by his campaign and by the ass-kissing PC media that groveled at his feet.

PS - As to meds, it's funny that the Libs (the dysfunctional Prozac™ nation) always project their own misfortunes on others. If it helps you to remember to take your meds, then please feel free to gratuitously remind me to take mine. Now turn off the radio and get some sun and fresh air. It’s beautiful out there and it won’t be long before some Commie Tsar in the Soetoro admin wants to tax our usage of such.

Have a blessed day.

The issue of approved vs. "off label" is very complex. FDA approval basically means the drug has been shown to be both SAFE and EFFECTIVE for the indications in the NDA (New Drug Application) submitted to the FDA. This process is intended to protect the public from medications that are dangerous or simply don't work. Of course, the NDA process also requires substantial amounts of time and money for each new and additional indication beyond those in the original NDA. And, at the end of the day, there is no guarantee that all of this investment will result in the desired approval. What I fear is lost upon the listening public is that not all indications merit (from a business perspective) the investment to get this type of approval. This is the unintended consequence of fixed time limits on drug patents, a practice that makes perfect sense for blockbuster drugs but creates a de facto limit on getting approvals for drugs/indications with smaller market potential. So, in quite a few cases, clinicians may learn of information from historical practice or ongoing studies that suggest a drug may be beneficial for a new (but off label) indication. Of course, the data for efficacy and safety is no where near as rigorous for these unapproved uses. It’s not a matter of "approved" = good, "off label" = bad, irresponsible, or somehow nefarious. It's much more nuanced. Examples are fentanyl and hydromorphone commonly used for patient-controlled analgesia - very commonly used but without FDA approval.

The guest mentioned Walmart's $4 prescriptions. On one level, this is a great program since it certainly helps improve affordability of some important medications. But, don't think that somehow Walmart, through it's marketing might, somehow caused many of these generics to be dramatically cheaper. They didn't. The likely scenario is that the drugs in this program already had a very low acquisition cost. What they have done, in many cases, is make a calculated judgement that they can dispense some of these drugs for very little money or perhaps at a loss. Now, while the product is cheap, I can't imagine as a business they are going to encourage their Pharmacy staff to spend a lot of time on "overhead" by providing other services that go along with dispensing medications.... assuming these pharmacists are really giving the patient's medication history the attention they should be giving them... which I strongly doubt. (Sorry, Walmart!!) The hope, of course, is that they might get you to switch all your prescriptions to their pharmacy. Meanwhile, you'll shop in there stores while you wait to increase Walmart's sales on higher margin products. These older, generic drugs are commodities since there is so much competition already. Increasing negotiation on generics won't make much of a difference.

Calls'em
oh dear, honey take your meds and u'll be fine.

Calls'em
and yet the votes are in and barak obama (his REAL name) won. fool me once...

the real joke the GOP hates PUBLIC financing or public anything, for that matter, but BHO is BAD because he did not take it.
makes u go hmmm

PS -- to all you broke ass liberal commies. The shareholders are "us." The profit goes to millions of Americans, just like you, but successful. Every union pension plan owns stocks and bonds - you benefit from it, you greedy profiteers. Every local, state and federal pension plan owns stocks and bonds - you benefit from it, you greedy profiteers. Even ACORN crooks (being investigated in at least 14 states) put some of the money they embezzled into the stock market. LOL. It seems that a new generation of listeners to this station doesn’t have two nickels to rub together and are filled with jealousy and rage. Take it to Cuba my friends, you'll like it there, everyone there will be broke too, except for your masters.

PS -- to all you anti-democratic types who don’t want to hear a full discussion of the issues, but only want the Marxist “truth;” Brian, Lenny and WNYC used to be much more objective had scholars and experts on the air instead of and in addition to industry spokespeople, people flogging books and biased bloggers. They are all now so unabashedly biased it is well beyond the pale of professional responsibility and yet so many of you liberal bed wetters still complain. LOFL.

Joke of the Day -- as Brian raises the $150 million dollars that the Obama admin extorted (Chicago gangland style) out of the pharmaceutical industry to help him, and then joked that it was almost twice as much as Senator McCain spent on his campaign. LOL Brian - have you no shame? After promising the public for almost two years that he would take public financing, a Democrat Party reform that has benefited the country for years; Obama a/k/a Barry Soetoro (his legal name) broke trust with the American public and took obscene amounts of private money and spent approximately $800,000,000.00 million dollars to garner approximately 69.5 million votes (many, like in Ohio, contestable). This comes out to approximately $11.5 dollars per vote. Much of that money is still unaccounted for. We can only speculate from whence it came, but clearly there was massive fraud. This was just one of the first of the many, many lies that Barry and his cabal of conspiring communists have perpetrated on the American people.

On the other hand, Senator McCain kept his promise to the American people and took public financing as have all recent presidential candidates. He spent approximately $84,000,000.00 and received just shy of 60 million votes. He spent approximately $1.4 dollars per vote. Had McCain had the $150,000,000.00 that Brian joked about he probably would have won the election. McCain’s challenge was made even more difficult given the fact that the media, including this formerly noble station, bent over backwards to fawn and gush over Obama while glossing over his foibles and frauds; many apparent, though not all, during the campaign. As some studies have shown, the coverage appeared to be 3 or 4 to 1 in volume for Obama and perhaps even more in favor in tone.

I believe that someday people from the Obama campaign will be going to jail.

It occurred to me while listening to your show today with the representative of pharma that the key to why they made a deal with the government is in the key words "biological drugs". These blockbuster drugs are v. expensive but boy do they work. They are the future of cancer care I am sure judging by how my daughter's lymphoma responded to one such drug given during chemo. It targetted the specific cell or cells and cleared her body of the symptoms. She received 6 treatments instead of 8 because of this success. Each treatment with this one drug cost $2,000. She and her husband work and have a small daughter. They could never have afforded this treatment except for the Canadian health coverage. So - the pharmaceutical industry will not lose money and hopefully the price of these very specific drugs will come down when they are more widely used.

Brian:

I love you, but I am becoming increasingly frustrated by the "differing points of view" meme. Your job as a journalist is not simply to present the differing points of view. It is to point us to the truth and to tell us what we need to know to make informed decisions.

How does it help us to have this guest broadcast the industry's talking points? I no more expect Mr. Waxman, who accepts large contributions from the pharmaceutical firms to strike the best deal for me than I do your gues. (BTW, please be sure to ask Mr. Waxman how much his campaign receives from the pharmaceutical industry.)

What would be more helpful to US, the public, is to have someone from FamiliesUSA one day, a single-payer advocate the next and Public Citizen the next. By focusing on industry and politics as much as you do, you obscure the real solutions.

Pharmaceutical companies create a lot of jobs, and pay a lot of taxes, even if they don't really cure as many people as they claim. A lot of it is mostly snake oil. But as a result, there is caution not to totally take down another industry, just as we didn't want to totally take down the US auto industry especially when there is more than enough umemployment as is. But yes they are subsidized to a great extent by US taxpayers. Those subsidies should be removed. They should pay royalties for much research done in gov't and academic labs. Alas, gov't research results are open and free to US taxpayers to make use of, and so the drug companies, who are also taxpayers, use them and don't have to pay anything. This has to be redressed.

Get mad at Big Pharma--they deserve it--but get mad at the WHite House, too. Rahm cut a deal with PhRMA in May. . . MAY! . . . other deals were cut with AHIP, AMA, and 1199. . . and we have been forced to dance this Kabuki all summer while we pretend to await the result of the Senate Finance Comm "negotiations." The WH never intended to give us a public option--it was nothing but a bargaining chip for them, something to threaten industry with if they didn't play nice.

Rahm's goal here is to keep industry money out of Republican campaign coffers--and so far this is working (which is why Boehner is so pissed). But the minute they push for price negotiations or a public option, that money starts to fund the right side of K street.

It is up to the people, through the House of Representatives, to insist on a robust public option. If we don't hold Congress to account, we don't get real healthcare reform. The WH made up its mind and set its "strategy" a long time ago.

I love how he twisted the free market concept of negotiating prices into "government price fixing." A glaring effort to twist meaning and deceive.

health care and in particular pharmaceutical corporations make literally obscene profits and their management make wall street compensation: wall street compensation drives irresponsible risk taking, only in this case they risk our lives and our economy and our future as a nation. same culture and same outcomes.

Laissez faire always leads to economic collapse and social catastrophe. Adam Smith predicted it and that is the record of history. Our government subsidy of private profit at public expense is driving us to a national economic collapse as sure as failed brakes on tractor trailor on a hill.

The costs of r&d for each drug is closer to $100 million than the billions your guest quotes.

http://www.citizen.org/documents/ACFDC.PDF

http://www.citizen.org/publications/release.cfm?ID=7065

And Pharmaceutical companies spend more than twice as much on advertising as they do on r&d.

And every drug company has had to pay large fines for inappopriate advertising and promotion.

http://www.familiesusa.org/resources/publications/reports/no-bargain-medicare-drug.html

wow. big pharma puts ads out to educate us? Uh, maybe in 1984-land. How can these guys live with themselves? Why not just admit that they want to make money and that health is a business just like everything else in our country. Ditto, by the way, the AMA. How long do we listen respectfully to the elite pleading financial need?

When pharma companies claim the $1Billion expense of developing a drug, they never mention who is paying for it. They want you to assume it's them, but often it's paid for in government research grants, gov't IP we just give away to them!

Also, I've worked in advertising/pr for a global agency, and had many clients. There is one clear message: sell product! And they are always playing on the margins in terms of the legality of their messaging, and the truth of their claims.

You have many great people on, but this guy is not really just a 'point of view'. He is an outright propagandist. Little of what he says is true, or at all a conversation in good faith.

brian, please don't even book guests like this if you're not going to ask the proper, hard questions.....do some "lopate" style programming and talk about bug mating rituals or something.
c'mon, brian, you have it in you to do the right thing here...do it!!!! this is a public radio station, and i'm a contributor...please do your job!!

Tom,
the feds pay some % of the R&D costs right now. i'm just wondering what the % is.

what about taxing some of the profits of health care to pay for basic research in food toxic chemicals packaging and other basic water soil farming food distribution and micro home environment and work environment factors in asthma obesity alzheimers mental disease depression heart disease etc: our lifestyles and life style choice

Prevention is fine but what about pre-existing health conditions. How will that be handled?

I think this affect more than 50% of Americans and even more as we do gene mapping/ like for breast cancer and Hutchinson's disease.

Help! I'm drowning in b.s. -- I think that it's emanating from my radio.

Brian is doing a good job, but these health industry guys are repulsive.

If they advertise to raise awareness, why do they mention specific drugs in their ads??

Count me in as a skeptic.

From the week that I temped at Pfizer (data entry on lawsuits they had for a heart attack drug that had claimed some lives) I remember somebody saying that they earmark enormous amounts of cash for potential lawsuits. Which is understandable, but the millions they set aside almost seem as if they are guaranteeing misconduct.

Also, there's the $500 million donation to Poetry Magazine in Chicago. Which is suspect because it was right around the time when Prozac lawsuits were beginning. And the donor's trust was intimately tied to the drugs profits. There's just so much money going around in health care. It's probably beyond our scope.

Ken Johnson mentioned that research shouldn't be left to the Federal government. NASA does just fine, can you imagine space research being left to private industry?

I've heard the drug companies spend moe on advetising than on research, and that most of the research is funded by tax dollars.

Brian, I know someone who works for Pfizer. They are spending hundreds of millions on the health care campaign, including by funding organizations trying to oppose the public option.

If people ate properly, they would not get diabetes!

The pharmaceutical industry does very little basic research anymore. Most of the breakthroughs in biomedical research comes from our nation's universities or organizations like NIH, which already receive federal subsidies. Big Parma takes that research without reimbursing the gov't., then invests in some in testing and a lot in marketing--the profits are never returned to the people who footed the bill for the basic research. . . us.

now he's claiming that drug ads are a public health service to raise awareness of medical conditions!! now that's chutzpah!

Advetisements are educational? Let the government take over the pharmaceuticals and run real educational TV spots, and not try to create demand for yet another me-too statin.

How are pharmaceutical companies even allowed to advertise on television? Ninety nine percent of what they advertise can not be purchased without a doctors prescription. The layman is not equipped to judge whether an advertised drug is appropriate for them. I can only imagine the amount of confusion this must cause doctors from patience requesting drugs they can't use or don't need. What a complete waste of money.

As the guest suggests, please do an entire show about advertising -- particularly about how they invent new diseases.

Hey Brian!

Would you ask him what percentage of phrma's revenue goes into research and development? This seems like it would put the whole issue into perspective.

Thanks!

It's the biggest joke on all of us that the gov't cannot negotiate the price of prescription drugs. The only people who are for this kind of deal are the politicians because they need their money. If you ask any individual on the street they will think it's ridiculous that the gov't agreed to this deal. This deal is in the best interest for the pharmaceutical companies not the American people. Period.

What's the salary of the researchers who work their hearts out. Are THEY making the billions, or is it the CEOs?

Another waste of airtime, especially given BL's reluctance to ask the hard questions. And his laughable mantra about "inclusiveness" is pathetic. Merely broadcasting on alternate days opposing points of view does NOT constitute a valuable debate.

"It raises awareness among many Americans about health conditions that they didn't realize they had."

Nonsense. It creates concern about non-existent, industry related "diseases" and thereby sells drugs that people don't really need, sometimes with deleterious effects.

Another respresentative from a "sophisticated, highly technical research-driven" industry with the soul of a used-car salesman.

If Waxman gets his way, who will fund the R&D? All the rest of the world depends on the USA and its health care recipients to pay this burden.

Thank you, Pat. Great comment!

On having the government bargain for drug prices: I'll take at face value the argument that drug companies need to make a profit to finance their research and development.

But other countries bargain for prescription drugs, and they're our economic peers. Why should the burden of financing R&D fall solely on Americans? No one is forcing the drug companies into deals with Canada or France that doesn't cover R&D costs.

We should be allowed to bargain. We might pay less and other countries more, but that would be a fairer distribution than what we have now.

It is disingenuous for the pharmaceuticals not to mention the tremendous tax credits in R&D they receive to compensate for the risk of bringing new drugs to the market!

Also, I suspect the scientist researching new drugs hate their executives' guts too.

In 2004, the spent $29.6 billion on R&D in 2004 in the US as compared to $27.7 billion for all promotional activities. How does your guest justify such large spending on advertisement? And if they can spend so much on advertisement, I have trouble believing that they don't have room in their budget to make some cut backs and still make a large profit. More commercials for a viagra or levietra certainly can't be needed!

I work in the pharma industry, specifically for a generics manufacturer. We're often accused of poaching the work performed by the branded pharmaceutical companies. This argument, and the R&D argument that your guest has made, however, is nonsense in light of the facts. Fact: the branded pharmas spend more on marketing than R&D, including vast amounts on direct-to-consumer advertising. (Note: consumers, not patients.) Fact: both Forest Labs and Pfizer were recently found guilty of illegally marketing their drugs, with a view of course to boosting their sales. The bottom line is the bottom line, and the pharmaceutical industry is ultimately beholden to its shareholders, not to the general public.

1 cent from the dollar is for R&D... So, why does Mr. Johnson use the R&D as an explanation of why taxpayers cannot negotiate prices with big pharma?

Walmart offers $4.00 prescriptions because those drugs are imported from India. Illegal for ordinary citizens (importing drugs from another country) fine for Walmart.

This interview shows that Pharma is worried. He is using the same old arguments about funding of research through those profits that they have to be making.
If this was true, there would not be any pharmaceutical companies anywhere outside of the US, right?

"Sending research and development overseas"? What, to countries that have universal health care? Countries that almost certainly bargain for better drug prices? By his logic, those countries shouldn't have the proper market incentives to promote solid research and development. So what's he talking about?

but even with all the talk of the cost of R&D, isn't the biggest line item expense advertising? Maybe we could cut back on Restless Leg Syndrome TV spots.

Brian,

Please ask your guest whether drug research and innovation takes place in countries like Canada (the ones we want to negotiate with) where the cost of drugs are cheaper. How do these countries manage to do it?

Wasn't stem cell research spearheaded in South Korea in part because of political resistance by republicans in this country?

--Suzanne

"what percent of new pharmaceuticals result from federally funded research? "
EXACTLY - the National Institutes of Health, federal $$, does the heavy lifting on research. This guy is painting a false picture.

Your guest stated the big problem without probably realizing what he was saying. Profits. That health care is profit driven is an oxymoron. For something to recoup and make a profit, it must therefore restrict it's access in order to get the highest price. This is how we ration health care in this country. Therefore, we need to change the entire system with nonprofit health care, which could still compete. This is how it's done in europe where they have numerous health care companies competeing for business but they make their money off of other products such as life insurance, home insurance etc.

How does this guy sleep at night?

Facts, facts, facts. The fact of the matter, so if he doesn't state it is a "fact" of the matter is he uh, lying, the rest of the time?

By the way, don't all insurance policies use formularies. I was prescribed a drug, I ordered it online and it never arrived. I called and found out it had been removed from the formulary list between refills. Rationing and exclusion. This was 7 or 8 years ago. Nothing new here.

And in all honesty, the fact of the matter, Mr. Johnson is the PR guy for PHARMA.

I would like to know how much money is spent on marketing products directly to the consumer. I take a drug that is marketed directly to the consumer and is wrapped in very expensive packaging that I throw away. How much of this packaging is included in the price of the drug? Have drugs replaced cosmetics in marketing?

By the way, insurance companies DO CONTROL the number of times we can reorder a prescription. He got it wrong.

There is no "free market" in big pharma. These companies use NIH and government-subsidized research to develop so-called "blockbuster" drugs (often to replace ones that already work fine, instead of going where the need is truly needed) and have huge profit margins. Profits and R&D are not tied together in these cases the way marketing and profits are.

Re: the Walmart example and your guest's defense that they are for older, generic drugs

So your guest would have no problem with the government negotiating prices on these drugs, correct?

All they care about is dispensing their drugs!

The research argument is a straw man. The idea that an industry wouldn't invest in research if they were making slightly less profit--or even much less profit--is laughable. That's like saying low-profit margin industries don't invest in R&D. Hmm. Sony: Those guys haven't come up with anything new.

Didn't he say that this government has had terrible experiences with "price controlling," and that they are a BAD idea?

But isn't that exactly what the pharma industry is asking for!?!

Okay, fine. Let the free market decide. Let us negotiate.

the book The Truth About the Drug Companies by Marcia Angell, MD completely debunks the claim that drug companies use their massive profits on research. They actually use it for pr and create broad categories so that what they say is "research" is actually marketing old drugs for new purposes.

The pharmaceutical industry is cleaning up and will continue to clean up if it gets its way. There are so many side effects to the drug that these companies develop, why would you want to take any of it? In addition, the doctors prescribe drugs like they are candy. I want a drug-free healthcare system, as much as possible.

Ugh. If Obama is already making deals with these people, I shudder to think what this "reform" will look like.

I laughed at his "drug to cure cancer" analogy; these guys love pulling that one out, even while their biggest money-makers cure elderly males of their erectile dysfunction. So guess where the research money goes? There's no money in, say, malaria, because the people who have it are poor. But sure, whip out that nonsense cancer story again.

Good questions, Brian.

The pharmaceutical companys' claim that they need hugh profits to cover R and D. But I've read that this research represents only a tiny part of their expenditures. Ken Johnson is laying this argument our very effectively but it's intended to be misleading.

He's mixing "people" and the "taxpayer". Plans may compete, but the ultimate un-negotiated invoice goes to the taxpayer. The non-negotiation clause in Medicare Part D is, after the Farm Bill, one of the most outrageous pieces of legislation ever written.

If all other countries set prices for drugs, aren't Americans in effect subsidizing research for the rest of the world? Is this fair?

If it is impossible for drug companies to operate profitably with price restrictions, why do they continue to do business in Europe, South America, etc?

What about Europe? Don't those countries collectively negotiate for lower drug prices? And don't they produce innovative drugs, too? I know most of these companies are multinational, so are American price markups funding innovations from Euro-based fir--like Glaxo Smithkline?

the companies constantly mention the high prices as tied in with r+d. aren't about 70-80 % of profits gouing to advertising?

pharmaceutical companies have some of the highest profit margins of any industry...

they're a bunch of scam artists... 17% profit margins? you've got to be kidding me.

This is a PR spiel whose hidden message is, "support reform, and jobs will be lost and medical research will end."

That's absurd. The Pharma industry takes in billions each year and profits handsomely from the new drugs that make it to the market. It's a money making operation from "Antibiotics" to "Zantac."

Nor is the government taking over health care. What is happening is that people are obtaining access to such care, and the raking in of profits by Big Health are being controlled.

Medicare should be able to negotiate. U.S. citizens should not be paying ten times the amount paid by Canadians or Europeans to obtain their mediations.

I agree that we have a sick care system, but we have to look beyond just medicine to get to the root causes of common diseases like cancer. there is strong evidence showing cancer is caused by toxic chemicals in our food, air, water, and environment, and we need to start using our scientific technology to create products that are not harmful to life.

DON'T BE FOOLED! According to the Pharma industry's own financials, Big Pharma spends MORE MONEY ON ADVERTIZING AND PROMOTION than on research!!!

Ask him how much they spend on MARKETING vs. research.

HEY we don't need to blame only Big pharama for the fact that doctors incorrectly use certain drug use!!! They do it on their own. Look at the labor & delivery industry. The drug Misoprostol (trade name Cytotec) was developed and is marketed to prevent and treat gastric and duodenal ulcers. YET some doctors use it to simulate labor. This despite the fact it leads to ruptures of the uterus and has far higher maternal death rate than other labor inducing drugs like pitocin, which is made and marketed for that. So it's not just Big Pharma that needs to be fined - the behavior of doctors needs to be much more closely monitored when it comes to the drugs they are doling out.

Can you ask why PhRMA wish to restrict imports from other countries, such as Canada, when the majority of (Big Pharma) drug production is outsourced to India/China and tax-havens such as Puerto Rico, Ireland and Singapore?

Also, the majority of innovation was (at least until the recent crash) coming from small, innovative companies with Big Pharma providing the marketing heft. Can he comment on the lack of recent innovation in Big Pharma?

As for preventing job losses NJ, NY and PA are about to lose > 20k jobs following the acquisitions of Schering-Plough and Wyeth. To protect jobs, wouldn't blocking these mergers be better?

Currently, the government is prohibited from negotiating drug prices through Medicare part D. Removing this restriction would be an important step forward in controlling health care spending, yet this is a major sticking point for the pharmaceutical industry. Of course the industry wants more drug coverage because that's more profit for them, particularly if prices can not be negotiated.

The guest's repsonse to the 'myth' of 50 million uninsured is a myth. 35 million young people are not uninsured because they are healthy, they are uninsured because health insurance is no longer being offered as a typical benefit to new workers. And with their measly starter salaries, there is no way they can afford health insurance on their own.

The guy OPENLY admitted to have a DEAL with the White House, i.e. he said yes, your politicians are corrupt and we pay them.

"with a straight face..," sounds like his spiel was written for TV

before i even hear your interview i suggest you ask your guest from the pharmaceutical industry if he's ever read "the truth about the drug companies: how they deceive us and what to do about it" by marcia angell. the author was the editor of the new england journal of medicine for 20 years so i think she knows what she's talking about. among the charges against the industry are the proliferation of "me too" drugs, which are a ploy to extend patents, the bribing of generic drug makers to hold off on competing low-cost drugs. the list goes on and on. bottom line, the drug companies are not interested in cutting edge research. the pipeline has been going dry for years. plus testing is completely dominated by the drug makers so oversight is very suspect.

The $2.4 billion fine Pfizer must pay as a result of their drug marketing -- big enough to fundamentally change marketing strategies industry wide?

Would this fine have stuck under the Bush admin?

Is the fine significant enough to diminish Big Pharma's clout on Capital Hill?

I love that this guy is coming on the show. Ballsy. Sadly, our President isn't showing the same spine in fighting for us. He's hugged PhRMA close to his chest, and now it looks like he'll be abandoning the public option to keep the insurance companies close.

AP reports that PhRMA and Pfizer together “reported spending more money than other health care organizations on lobbying in the second quarter of this year.”

PhRMA to the tune of $6.2 million, and separately, $5.6 million from Pfizer.

“Including its latest report, PhRMA has now spent $13.1 million lobbying so far this year. Pfizer has reported $11.7 million in lobbying expenses for 2009.”

what percent of new pharmaceuticals result from federally funded research?

why shouldn't the pharmaceutical industry pay royalties on these innovations?