This is a place where like minded individuals of ALL demographic strata with opinions about health care, with an emphasis on ethics, honest, crystal clear intentions, and evidence based treatments can feel free to speak right up. I am also committed to full disclosure, personal health records, collaborative, stepped-care models and most of all, the power of positive intentions and laughter as the first line treatment plan.
This is very good news, I hope. I miss you all, and I hope I will be able to return to blogging in the near future. I wish to shout out Dr. Peter Rost, in his new position at BrandRx, as a columnist. Wow, are they smart to hire him, as no ONE blog can contain this man :)
I am well, however, I am very busy. I am also moving around often, and that disrupts my internet access for many days. I am still very interested in everything that is happening and am following it carefully.
When I finish a mirror site that I am working on, I will be back....
Love, Peace, and more protections for journalists of every type,
In a previous posting I re-posted and commented upon a story by Dr. Rost about the illegal marketing of an HIV/AIDS medication. I thought it was horrible what was being done, and I was so DAMN proud of Jane Roe. Well, now I am even MORE proud of her. WAY TO GO JANE!! For being cool and representing well. Your comments and statements were rational and articulate. Thank you so much for all your efforts, really for all of us.
You all need to read the original because it is too complex for me to summarize. I would like to start with the LAST QUOTE FROM THE POSTING:
"Pfizer is simply acting like any minor dictatorship when it comes to suppressing dissidents."
"So not only was it not enough to simply fire me; to make sure I never got another job again Pfizer labeled me a criminal and a parasite. No one should be surprised if Pfizer hires detectives to throw mud at people. Pfizer's head of security is a former FBI agent. After all, FBI J. Edgar Hoover, had surveillance, even of Presidents, down to an art."
Tokyo Show DOAX2 girls trailer: Is this Real? What New PHARMA Product Is Being Introduced? Happy Belated Birthday.
This SHOUT OUT is to Dr. Peter Rost. I love his books, his ethics, his blog and his reporting. He has MUCHO empathy and I honestly believe he is earnest in his obsession with truth and social justice in health care. In any moment of time, I would be so honored and grateful to work under his leadership.
The Rational Questioning of SANITY here is, WHY? I have thought long and hard about this. I have to diametrically oppose the statement made by John Mack about how I link to Peter and other blogs to improve my counts. John, for the record, I write for a very small number of consistant people, around 30 of them. They are the only people who matter to me. Therefore, if I repost other stories, it is because I either have something to say, I think they are important, or I just feel like it.
Its my blog and I can post when I want to :)
So, Peter, I pray what they are saying in BrandRx and other blogs is NOT TRUE. I am PRAYING that it is NOT true. I know you need money. Honestly, I wish you everything you need. But honestly, if you stop blogging about ANY ONE COMPANY then you might as well not blog about any of them.
YOU PERSONALLY have started a BRUSH FIRE OF HEALTH CARE EMPIRICALLY BASED, FACT DRIVEN, and here I am sure if anyone read this blog, I would be crucified for writing this, but, OBJECTIVE presentations. When I am cleared legally, I hope to emulate you. What is wrong with that? We need thousands of people to speak up guys!!! Its GREAT that we are all caching the same content. IT MEANS THE CONTENT IS IMPORTANT TO PEOPLE.
This timely and very salient health care content, combined with humor and blatently FUN sensuality and black humor makes all these volunteer efforts worth it for me. Reading Rost each day, gives me something to look forward to in very trying and tiring times.
If it was this Kitty's purrrfect world, I would make Dr. Rost form an oversight committee for the pharmaceutical industry that would be formed from many different stake holder groups that would be arrived at by consensus. This group would be international and maybe be hosted by a NEUTRAL country like Sweden or Switzerland. This oversight agency would have as its mission, the protection of humanity, the earth and all its wonderful life forms against out of control pharmacological and other big business interests that directly effect quality of life through health and health care utilization.
I really gave Peter a hard time about all the porno links on his page when he returned from his self imposed 2 week hiatus from blogging. Peter was scratched hard by a bitchy old kitty and I bet she is a sorry Kitty now. She is not the ONLY sorry person, and not the only sorry PHARMA company. It is important to note that Peter cleaned out the porn, and listened to honest feedback about how it detracted from the seriousness of his reporting.
Rost is NOT anti-PHARMA. He IS a whistle blower, and someone who worked very hard for the re-importation of DRUGS to America from Canada. WHY DID HE NEED TO DO THIS? This crusade was fundamentally AGAINST his own self interests and the interests of his family. The type of lifestyle that Rost had as a VP of huge PHARMA companies must have come to a grinding halt. I PERSONALLY know how painful that can be. In my own opinion, he was screwed over by the U.S. government when I believe they lent implicit agreement to support his legislative efforts. I know I will be killed for this statement IF anyone actually read this blog :)
But what I admire MOST about Peter, is that in SPITE of how TERRIBLE he was treated by the U.S. government and his past employers, Pfizer, Wyeth, Pharmacia, etc., he always acted and continues to act like a gentle person and a scientist. He never resorted/s to name petty personality attacks, rather he fought/fights back with empirical evidence, rationality, and empathy for the victims of the crimes caused by his past employers.
I wish I could say the same for SOME of the other blogs I read that are BLATANTLY apologetic for the crimes against humanity perpetrated by big businesses of all types. Especially ones that give BIG PERKS AND MEDIA ATTENTION to bloggers that pander to the givers of trips and perks.
I don't want anyone to think that this is a love letter, or trivialize my posting by critiquing my personal Kitty feelings for Peter. They have no bearing on what he has done in his life, ON THE RECORD, and my personal interpretation of these factual events.
I am just SO HAPPY to be able to watch this BIG ALPHA WOLF go at it. This kind of behavior is sensual by nature in its power, it collects people to a mission, and it has been the SPARK that lead this health care blogging, dare I say.... no... well okay... REVOLUTION.
Pfizer's CFO Alan Levin's resignation was hastily announced 9:25 PM on Sunday evening in a BusinessWire news release. Mr. Levin, 45, took over as the chief of finance in 2005.Mr. Levin's resignation comes after three days of disclosures of corruption in Pfizer's finance department, revealed by former Pfizer finance executive Mr. Ashok S. Idnani.
"The documents the whistleblower provided show that high level Pfizer executives in India and the company's New York headquarters, including Jeff Kindler, had been made aware of the allegations before the whistleblower, who'd been with Pfizer for 28 years, was fired." For full story of Pfizer's financial whistleblower see:
Dr. Peter Rost is the self- proclaimed "health care Hitman" formally a VP from the EVIL PHARMA Empires (Biggie P and Biggie W), who defected to use his "special powers" for the forces of good, In the course of a couple of months, he has BROKE several of the biggest health care media Whistle-blower stories GLOBALLY. His new BIG story breaks today.
Question Authority with Dr. Peter Rost: AstraZeneca's pink cupcakes cause cat fight. According to John Mack. Check out the cool pictures on this posting. Those big Cats are awesome! This was an exciting and sad day for this old Black Cat. The blogging late into the night, was mistaken for a wild woman rage, my bad. But the content was valid. John Mack felt that Chris Truelove and I were battling out the Pink Cupcake Marketing. However, Chris and I agreed on more points than we disagreed. And she (and I think John Mack) are willing to listen to NON ranting, heart felt feedback on DTC and other PHARMA campaigns.
Also today, along a Rost-type plot, the job description for my replacement was placed, without telling me, and in the middle of negotiations. I only found out because the email was sent to me by my "pal." That is the way they announced my "resignation" from that position. Given, that I have not signed the letter of resignation, and that I was in on going talks, and that they SCREWED my staff (that is bad), and they have been sued for this very reason before.
You, John Mack, ended up laying down, and playing with me on my own level, just like the Husky dog in the aforementioned video below.
Health Care Hitman - Dr. Peter Rost breaks another big story. Jane Roe (aka) claims that Pfizer used the HIV sales force to illegally promote the drug to doctors before approval. The drug is called Maraviroc, and it will be the first CCR5 receptor antagonist on the market.
Rost talked to Roe, and her answers are very cogent and articulate with respect to the role of Pfizer in marketing a drug before it has been approved by the FDA. This is very illegal, yet the medical director of the HIV unit, who has no HIV clinical experience himself, along with a drug rep, went to MD offices to try to sign up patients for "trials" of the medication.
I find it amazing and 60 Minutes-like in reporting the fact that Dr. Rost has copies of the SLIDES for the presentation that was given to MDs on the sly. YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THEM. The Powerpoint is full of graphs and cool pictures. The graph here shows that the viral load is significantly decreased in comparison to placebo. Its also true that being open about your sexual orientation and HIV status lowers Viral load and CD4 count, and its drug-free.
This looks like SALES to me, however, tt is my opinion, that Pfizer needed to UP their N (number of people successfully taking the drug) and that, rather than advance sales, is what drove Pfizer to supposedly break the law. No matter the reason, the deed was wrong.
WHAT is UP with Pfizer these days? Are they on Crack?
It seems as though they are acting like meth or crack addicts by greedily breaking all the rules to infuse themselves with their favorite green happiness... the dollar.
SHOUT OUT TO JANE ROE FOR HAVING THE COURAGE AND INTEGRITY TO SPEAK OUT. THANK YOU!
"Wait for the next story I'm working on: Major drug company is alleged to have used the sales force to market a drug way before approval. And the drug is still not approved! I have the slides, I have the story and I'm talking to another anonymous whistleblower."
I am going to close my eyes and meditate on the positive intention, that he means me. I know this is NOT the case, but a Kitty can dream!
I am so very close, personally, to writing my story. This is a story of an innocent idealistic little black kitten that was adopted by a departmental CHAIR in a very famous medical school in the early 1980's. It is a Dickens's type story.
The kitten turned Kitty, who once was the CHAIRS favorite pet, personal psychotherapist and idea fountain, for reasons that were understandable and not understandable, became pathologically hated by the CHAIR.
The Kitty became psychologically and physically too ill to dwell in the Ivory Catbox over time. At this point in time, negotiations for my replacement(s) are 2.5 full FTEs to replace .65 of Kitty FTE. The only good I can see out of it is that my staff will all hopefully, if the Kitty is scary enough, get promotions and more permanent job. I guess three young kittens getting good jobs are worth one old black kitty getting kicked to the curb!!
Today the hard core issues were laid out... lets put these in kitty terms: bad and abusive owners over the life of the kitty.. about 26 yrs to be exact; food that was not produced according to legal standards; fishing and fishing for that toy that will lure in the kitties to the catnip; and of course.. all the interesting characters one meets in the collective Ivory Catboxs that comprise the feeding frenzy of NIMH and PHARMA $$.
This kitty wishes she knew if the big ALPHA DOGS which she loves actually can earn a living from writing and blogging. This Kitty is totally camera shy, so Rost type TV appearances are not possible. If any Health Care or Pharma blogger would wish to help me with understanding this situation I would greatly appreciate it.
COULD THIS WEEK GET ANY BETTER?? I came home dead tired from a mind blowing great 4-20-07 in stupendous Vancouver BC, and I was feeding myself before going to bed early, and I saw this post from Pharma BlogSpot's Dr. John Mack (I assume he is a doctor, although I don't know for sure). His post feels like such a great honor to me that I am really speechless. For me, my friends will tell you (and my not friends too) that is very unusual :) Thank you, Dr. Mack, for the great EDITING job, which calmed my heart, when it hit high palpitations when I read the title of this post *blush*.
I copied the whole post below, or you can click on the link if you like. I hope this doesn't violate the blogger rules, but the credits all go to Pharma BlogoSphere, who put his blog where his words lay. This morning, he asked for beginning bloggers and others, to submit the mission of their blog to him. This was so gallant and positive, that I couldn't resist. Also, knowing that serious intellectuals and those with good humor about PHARMA (sorta kinda) MIGHT actually read this blog from time, keeps me on the straight and narrow, in terms of topics to post.
A big purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr :) Monday, April 23, 2007
BK, author of the blog "The Black Kitty - All Things Health Care Related" sent the following message of love and peace to us "alpha dogs" of the Pharma BlogosphereTM in a comment to a recent post on this blog. I thought it deserved more prominence!
As an outsider closely observing your alpha dog PHARMA blogger WARS, I can say, that in my very HUMBLE and RESPECTFUL opinion, you all should really stop focusing so much on the negatives in each others work product and use your positive intentions to build up all bloggers who share, lets say 50% or more common information or linkages to your sites.
Its a big cluster f*&*( to those who peak in for the first time). YOU ALL link so intensely to each other, I actually thought you were all one person. You don't sound even write all that differently in style. Except, Dr. Rost and Pharma Giles who are both unique, very informative, timely, and funny as hell at times.
Even little tic unread blogs like mine, Black Kitty at gcic. blogspot.com love getting recognition from you big dog health care bloggers.
There are several exceptionally good blogs trying to break in to get to your levels of popularity (e.g., clinical psych, furious seasons, pharma-analyst, WSP).
I believe that YOU as a community are committed to getting other men into your ALPHA DOG network of top health care blogers. You all are doing a good job of helping SOME of them.
I received PRICELESS help from Dr. Rost. Just mentioning my blog on his, gets me 100 hits in a few hours. That IS BIG TIME FOR ME. It makes me and my family really happy to see the increasing bang on analytics.. totally provided courtesy of Dr. Rost.
Thank you, TO ALL OF YOU. I LOVE reading and commenting and being a general pain in the ass.
I AM a very good statistican, and if you want to talk data analysis of your blogger survey or more objective measurement(for free) let me know.
Love and Peace,
Dr. BK
Black Kitty sounds like someone we should get to know better, even though she does seem a bit enamored of Peter Rost!
Dr. Rost is MORE than on fire, he is going to become the next Dan Rather (and much better looking too). This story belongs in the NY Times front page!
The bottom line is that legally and ethically a company needs to have a double blind placebo controlled trial that compares 2 medications directly, head to head. Not indirectly by - A is Better than B, and B is Better than C - therefore A is a better treatment than C?
This is only true if things are measured perfectly, without error, in a perfect world. ONE WOULD THINK that if we are dealing with PEOPLE'S LIVES HERE, the government would insist that all PHARMA marketing claims are rigorous, honest, crystal clear and explained at the appropriate intellectual level for all types of audiences... doctors to consumers.
The tapes are scary. Evil is so ordinary. That is what gives me chills.
Pharma BlogoSphere: 'Round the Sphere: Rost Rocks, AZ PR Meltdown, New Name Exposed I agree with this posting. Peter Rost Rocks! And not only that, is leading a pack of wolves to the gates. For the first time since he started Whistleblowing, I think that he is coming into his own. I am so grateful that I can watch this unfold. Thanks Pharma BlogSphere for saying so articulately what I am thinking :)
Dr. Peter Rost reports on a short but very meaningful conversation with a whistler blower at AZ. Here is his text below. Peter Rost is a very busy man. I constantly DIGG and write about him, but on the lists he publishes of OTHER blogs that quote HIM, I AM NEVER INCLUDED. This Kitty craves attention... but alas, she is a small flea in a pack of very big alpha wolves.
My positive intention is to spread his word - minus his self promotion. I wish he would see the light of how I can help him in the future. It really doesn't matter, because Peter is the best blogger I have ever read, hands down. For that reason only, I give him the respect he deserves. But personally, I am done emailing him. Its up to you now Peter!
Interview with AstraZeneca "Group of Seven" Whistleblower
This is an interview between Question Authority and one of the AstraZeneca whistleblowers:
QA: "I appreciate the fact that you contacted me about this story . . . but seriously, why don't you want to talk to the other big media outlets? You have one of the three national television networks asking for an interview and the biggest US newspaper also trying to find you. You could have much more impact that way."
AZ: "We will seriously consider going to the media but right now I only trust you, as a fellow whistleblower."
QA: "Have you actually mailed your Open letter to the OIG, and have you signed with your real name?"
AZ: "We mailed, emailed, faxed and called in this information to OIG LAST MONTH to the OIG Hotline. No real names given. Just the report number. By Phone: 1-800-HHS-TIPS (1-800-447-8477) By Fax: 1-800-223-8164 By E-Mail: HHSTips@oig.hhs.gov By Mail:Office of Inspector General Department of Health and Human Services Attn: HOTLINE 330 Independence Ave., SW Washington, DC 20201."
QA: "Any other thoughts you have on this story?"
AZ: "Three more things: 1) An even bigger scandal would be if OIG did nothing and didn't care. 2) Why didn't Zubillaga's Boss, Scarlett Spring, National Sales Director Oncology, fire Zubillaga months ago? 3) Also, Mid-Atlantic Oncology Newsletter Editor District Sales Manager [Name redacted] has a history of producing newsletters for the South West Region."
Question Authority with Dr. Peter Rost: Pfizer: Lying by omission is a great new post, and a natural continuation of the work by Dr. Rost. In his Whistleblower Non-fiction book, which is INCREDIBLY heart breaking, thought provoking and damn scary all at the same, he tells you the BACK STORY to this post. I suggest you buy the book, as it is a very fast and important read for all of us who work with PHARMA. I will review the book in another post, when I have finished it, and have finished processing its implications. Hope my RG is having great luck in her Windy City Endeavors.... Peace.
This post, courtesy of Dr. Peter Rost supplies us with 2 YouTube clips of individuals speaking about human growth hormone. If anyone should know about HGH it IS Dr. Rost. He was the brave man who laid down his career in order to have Pfizer honestly market HGH to aging adults. Dr. Rost read the medical studies, and found, like we did in the late 80's that HGH didn't do shit. Sorry. All it did in the elderly (65+) was show slight statistically significant results in more hours of sleep and better mood. I believe these results, if statistically analyzed in an empirically valid manner, would show, that ANY efficaciousness of HGH was due to the MEDIATING effects of BEHAVIORAL ACTIVATION.
Activating your MIND and your BODY is the only known way to slow down aging. AND ITS FREE. So jump on the bandwagon folks... try exercise and reading as first line anti-aging treatments, before spending $$$ on shit that just doesn't work.
This is a very important story that explains this bizarre connection. Read it yourself, its too strange to be real, but too real not to be strange. Although the intellectual differences between the 2 people, as a different as night and day, they both are tied together by the compount HGH (human growth hormone). What I find interesting, is that, the death of a media icon, a poor very psychiatrically and physically ill woman, could maybe shed light on the misuse of HGH. Look guys, she was shooting so much stuff literally into her butt, that she had very bad infections and scar tissue. I guess she didn't have the laproscopic tummy tie after that.
I watched poor Anna on her 2 seasons on E! I would use some of the episodes as examples of borderline personality disorder, impulsive anger, and of course substance abuse, when teaching residents.
(http://www.rcfp.org/foi_letter/generate.php) which allows you to access information using the freedom of information act - online. If you are inspired to find some information, and put your blog where your mouth is.. hen here YOU go. Click on the link for State or Feds. Good luck!!
This is very good news, I hope. I miss you all, and I hope I will be able to return to blogging in the near future. I wish to shout out Dr. Peter Rost, in his new position at BrandRx, as a columnist. Wow, are they smart to hire him, as no ONE blog can contain this man :)
