Posted on 05/09/2007 12:12:36 AM PDT by neverdem
Two of the world’s largest drug companies are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to doctors every year in return for giving their patients anemia medicines, which regulators now say may be unsafe at commonly used doses.
The payments are legal, but very few people outside of the doctors who receive them are aware of their size. Critics, including prominent cancer and kidney doctors, say the payments give physicians an incentive to prescribe the medicines at levels that might increase patients’ risks of heart attacks or strokes.
Industry analysts estimate that such payments — to cancer doctors and the other big users of the drugs, kidney dialysis centers — total hundreds of millions of dollars a year and are an important source of profit for doctors and the centers. The payments have risen over the last several years, as the makers of the drugs, Amgen and Johnson & Johnson, compete for market share and try to expand the overall business.
Neither Amgen nor Johnson & Johnson has disclosed the total amount of the payments. But documents given to The New York Times show that at just one practice in the Pacific Northwest, a group of six cancer doctors received $2.7 million from Amgen for prescribing $9 million worth of its drugs last year.
Yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration added to concerns about the drugs, releasing a report that suggested that their use might need to be curtailed in cancer patients. The report, prepared by F.D.A. staff scientists, said no evidence indicated that the medicines either improved quality of life in patients or extended their survival, while several studies suggested that the drugs can...
--snip--
The report was released in advance of a hearing scheduled for tomorrow, during which an F.D.A. advisory panel will consider whether the drugs are overused.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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“Two of the world’s largest drug companies are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to doctors every year in return for giving their patients anemia medicines, which regulators now say may be unsafe at commonly used doses.”
Or maybe they are. I can’t remember.
Say that again?
Say what again, the title? I don't make this stuff up.
I buy Aranesp at the local pharmacy and give the shots to myself. My pharmacist told me that the retail price of my dose, taken once every five weeks, is $1540. The CBC blood tests to monitor the effect is $47 per month.
That's not cheap. I'd have my transferrin and ferritin levels checked periodically if I was spending that much money. Modest iron supplements could help.
What’s wrong with the pharmacists and manufacturers charging less? I pay my doctor from my pocket and I don’t want to pay him again based on some incentive plan the pharmacies cook up.
That's not cheap. I'd have my transferrin and ferritin levels checked periodically if I was spending that much money.
The $1540 is the retail price -- not what I pay. I have no idea how much money my prescription drug insurance pays for a dose, but I suspect they do not pay retail price. My co-pay cost is only $10 per dose. I've got outstanding prescription drug insurance.
You don’t get a Rx because you need it anymore, you get it because the doctor can make money from the drug companies.
Most people today are taking way more medications then they need, or are taking drugs they never needed to begin with.
Question your doctor, do research on the medications you take or that the doctor is trying to ram down your throat. Your life may depend on it.
ANEMIA not amnesia!!!
“ANEMIA not amnesia!!!”
Looks like I need some Lysdexia drugs.
Or was that Lysergic?
Maybe that’s my problem...
Interesting article. Thanks for the post and the ping, neverdem.
Medicare paid for my mother’s shots as long as her blood work showed she “needed” the erythropoetin.
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