If you want to entertain yourself with some facts, how about you look at the history of Mercks death drug Vioxx. These are the companies that you (EOT) seek to defend. You (EOT), are at the bottom of the food chain.
Like Pfizer, they hid the known side effects (cardiac arrest) from their customers until caught out by the FDA due to massive numbers of deaths from the drug. The drug was withdrawn from the US market, re named and then launched on the UK market before the same death and destruction caused it's removal. But Merck weren't finished. Another name change and then they launched it on third world countries like Brazil. They were fined just under $4billion dollars but they'd already made well over 10 billion on the drug.
Former Merck Sales Executive, Brandy Vaughan, blew the whistle on their corruptive practices and she died mysteriously at 45 yrs of age.
The following excerpt is from the Australian Newspaper detailing Mercks abhorent activity toward any medical practioner that questioned the safety of their drug, Vioxx.
"..."...Merck made a "hit list" of doctors who criticized Vioxx, according to testimony in a Vioxx class action case in Australia.
The list, emailed between Merck employees, contained doctors' names with the labels "neutralise," "neutralised" or "discredit" next to them.
Merck emails from 1999 showed company execs complaining about doctors who disliked using Vioxx.
One email said: We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live ...
The plaintiffs' lawyer gave this assessment:It gives you the dark side of the use of key opinion leaders and thought leaders ... if (they) say things you don't like to hear, you have to neutralise them ... It does suggest a certain culture within the organisation about how to deal with your opponents and those who disagree with you.
The Australian:
The court was told that James Fries, professor of medicine at Stanford University, wrote to the then Merck head Ray Gilmartin in October 2000 to complain about the treatment of some of his researchers who had criticised the drug.
"Even worse were allegations of Merck damage control by intimidation," he wrote, ... "This has happened to at least eight (clinical) investigators ...
I suppose I was mildly threatened myself but I never have spoken or written on these issues."
The allegations come on the heels of revelations that Merck created a fake medical journal -- the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine -- in which to publish studies about Vioxx; had pop songs commissioned about Vioxx to inspire its staff, and paid ghostwriters to draft articles about the drug.
