21% of seniors on risky meds; more in U.S. South | Brown University News and Events

21% of seniors on risky meds; more in U.S. South | Brown University News and Events: "PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — More than one in five seniors with Medicare Advantage plans received a prescription for a potentially harmful “high-risk medication” in 2009, according to an analysis by Brown University public health researchers. The questionable prescriptions were significantly more common in the Southeast United States, as well as among women and people living in relatively poor areas.

The demographic trends in the analysis, based on Medicare data from more than 6 million patients, suggest that differences in the rates of prescription of about 110 medications deemed risky for the elderly cannot be explained merely by the individual circumstances of patients, said lead author Danya Qato, a pharmacist and doctoral candidate in health services research at Brown."

Consumers lose out as TGA reform turns into a hot potato

Consumers lose out as TGA reform turns into a hot potato: "We do need to fix the TGA and the regulation of health products (drugs, devices and “supplements”). The cost of regulatory incapacity – lack of coherent legislation, capture by stakeholders, lack of expertise, unwillingness to take action – significantly outweighs both the TGA’s and the ACCC’s budgets."

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Consumers lose out as TGA reform turns into a hot potato

Consumers lose out as TGA reform turns into a hot potato: "Let’s look first at regulatory incapacity, specifically the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) – the national pharmaceuticals and medical devices regulator. It’s an agency that’s too important to abolish; we can’t start again from scratch.

Unfortunately, it’s not performing very well – resulting in both serious harm to thousands of Australians and a burden to the taxpayer many times greater than its budget. When the TGA fails, you pay the price through increased public health costs and lower national productivity. And it’s immune from legal action over that failure.

Recent examples of its incapacity are failures regarding breast implants and hip implants. The government has responded with a bill that, in part, is an admission of defeat."

'Deceitful' Big Pharma accused of putting lives at risk

'Deceitful' Big Pharma accused of putting lives at risk: "Patients are being deceived into taking drugs they don't need, that don't work or may put lives at risk, according to a scathing review of the influence big drug companies have on healthcare.

Drug companies ''masterfully influenced'' medicine, a joint review by Australian, British and US researchers has found, describing how the enormous profit involved in making and selling drugs gave the industry power to influence every stage of the health system.

''As a result of these interferences, the benefits of drugs and other products are often exaggerated and their potential harms are downplayed,'' their research, published in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation, found.

A co-author of the paper, Emmanuel Stamatakis, from the University of Sydney's school of public health, said it was ''entirely illogical'' to rely on the pharmaceutical industry to fund medical research."

Drug companies pay doctors £40m for travel and expenses | Society | The Guardian

Drug companies pay doctors £40m for travel and expenses | Society | The Guardian: "companies are paying an estimated £40m a year to British doctors in service fees, flights, hotel and other travel expenses, according to the trade body that represents pharmaceutical companies.

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) said that most of the 44 biggest companies had now revealed how much they paid doctors to help market their drugs. Its aggregated total of £40m is based on 35 suppliers who have shared precise information with the body and estimates for the rest.

The largest British group, GlaxoSmithKline, spent £1.9m on fees for advice and consultancy on 1,517 UK-based doctors, an average of £1,252 each. It also sponsored 1,022 doctors and other healthcare professionals to attend scientific conferences and meetings, at a total cost of £887,294 – an average of £868 per trip.

Doctors have always denied that taking drug company money influences their judgement in any way about a medicine, but suspicions have lingered."

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Victims of faulty breast implants were let down by the TGA

Victims of faulty breast implants were let down by the TGA: "The announcement this week by plaintiff law firm Tindall Gask Bentley that it was abandoning a class action against the Australian distributors of Poly Implant Prosthese (PIP) breast implants illustrates critical defects in Australia’s regulatory framework for medical devices.

For five of the eight years that Medical Vision Australia Pty Ltd (MVA) was the sole Australian distributor of PIP implants, it apparently had no product liability insurance. The company is now in liquidation. There is no point in pursuing MVA, because there simply won’t be sufficient assets to compensate victims. The French manufacturer is facing criminal prosecution, and is also bankrupt."