« Morning Smoke: Cables Show Nuclear Regulators Promoting Nuclear Technology | Main | Morning Smoke: How to Save Hundreds of Billions of Dollars by 2024 »

Apr 19, 2011

Comments

karlub

If you think ghost-written articles are unethical you have a problem with pretty much the entire peer-review process.

The question is why was Forest selected for this treatment.

John M. Nardo MD

Although Bill Charles point isn't lost on me, a Paul Thacker blog sounds pretty good. And while "ghost-writing" articles for "thought leaders" hasn't made it into be books as a hard core crime, it's on the way.

Bryan Rahija

Hello everyone,

Thank you for all this feedback!

The POGO angle here is that taxpayers spend billions of dollars a year through programs like Medicare and Medicaid on pharmaceuticals. With around 15 percent of federal healthcare spent on pharmaceuticals, this translates to almost 2 percent of the federal budget, making companies like Forest Labs some of the biggest recipients of federal dollars. Documents like the one highlighted in this post indicate that they may be willfully misrepresenting their product to, as Paul said, one of their largest customers: the taxpayer! That sounds like the sort of fraud, waste and abuse that we at POGO have always fought to eliminate.

Bill Charles

NAN raises a reasonable point. This blog should keep to the organization's mission. Otherwise it will just turn into the Paul Thacker blog, and really who wants to read that?

Robert Olcott

Having worked as an investigator, I have to applaud Paul Thacker. I also need to thank POGO, and Senator Charles Grassley-even if he is a Republican. The folks from Iowa are fortunate to have such a statesman, and the American taxpayers, too!

Morrison

Good story--but probably a lot better, and in keeping with POGO's professionalism most of the time, without the middle-school newspaper-level catty language.

nah

this piece lacks pogo's riggorous standards. what was illegal? where is the waste, fraud, or abuse here? so you don't like drug companies...big deal.

The comments to this entry are closed.