Drug Companies

A relief convoy arrived in Tirana, Albania, last month bearing tons of antacids, antibiotics and multivitamins, all donated by American drug companies.The shipment, destined for Kosovar refugees encamped on the Yugoslav border, also included almost a ton of a drug whose side effects could be dangerous under refugee-camp conditions and amid the greater chaos of refugees returning to farms, villages and cities ravaged by war.The drug, Voltaren, is a powerful arthritis painkiller made by Novartis Pharmaceutical Corp.

THERE wont be any big changes in the current congressional session on Medicare or other aspects of this nations struggling health-care system.Congress and the White House would rather jockey for political advantage than hammer out fundamental reforms.Other than a bill undoing a tiny fraction of the damage done to teaching hospitals, nursing homes and home-health programs through budget cuts two years ago, congressional leaders are content to spout platitudes on health care.A patients bill of rights?

AUSTIN -- A story finally getting some attention is the hideous case of the U.S. trade representative trying to force African countries not to manufacture cheap generic substitutes for the drugs used to treat AIDS.Our government aims to protect the profits of multinational drug companies. Obviously, practically no one in Africa, where the disease is rampant, can afford the $15,000 a year that the drug companies now charge for the full AIDS "cocktail." And 85 percent of all AIDS sufferers live in third world countries.

ANYONE WHO watches enough television commercials knows there is no health decision so foolish, no disorder so debilitating, that it can't be overridden by a product at the drugstore.Heartburn keeps you up at night, but you just can't stand the boredom of a sensible diet? Have we got a pill for you! We're not allowed to tell you to grind up an extra one and sprinkle it on top of your chili dog with onions, but we sure can give you the impression that there is nothing our magic pill won't let you eat.Or do you sneeze just looking outside the window during allergy season?

Human Genome Sciences Inc. will unveil today a protein library it hopes will lead to new drugs and which provides information it wants to sell to other companies.Human Genome will tell the Biotechnology Industry Organization's annual meeting in New York that it has produced what it considers to be the world's largest database of genes that encode about 10,000 "expressed" or "secreted" proteins.Those proteins ultimately determine virtually all cell processes -- including the development of many diseases.

WASHINGTON -- The federal government has repeatedly reprimanded drug companies in recent months after finding that they had made false or misleading claims in television commercials and magazine advertisements for a wide range of prescription drugs.Such advertising has exploded as drug companies market their products directly to consumers. The government is scrambling to keep up with Madison Avenue.In the past year alone, the Food and Drug Administration has admonished companies about commercials advertising drugs for allergies, asthma, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, hair loss and sexually transmitted diseases.

VIAGRA could use a little Viagra.At least the company that makes the impotence drug, Pfizer Inc., could use a dose of its own medicine. For that matter, many of the big drug companies could also stand a pill or two.These once white-hot drug stocks have cooled off, and some experts are staying away from them because, while their prices have swooned -- in some cases by 30 percent -- they have not fallen far enough."

J. Craig Venter, a Rockville-based pioneer in the field of gene discovery, and one of the largest makers of genetic analysis equipment will launch a new company to try to decode the entire human genome in three years, then package and sell the database to drug companies and others seeking to develop new drugs, tests and other medical treatments.The as-yet unnamed company will be headed up by Venter, who will serve as president, and be headquartered in Rockville.Venter and executives at Perkin-Elmer Corp.

WHEN SmithKline Beecham PLC said it had entered merger talks with Glaxo Wellcome PLC, it sent shares of drug companies soaring on expectations that more mergers were on the way.SmithKline announced its talks with Glaxo at the same time it stopped negotiations with American Home Products Corp., giving traders the impression that SmithKline was serious about increasing its size.But smaller pharmaceutical companies have been a success even without huge investments in genetic research, and some of the conglomerates are still trying to boost profits.

PEDIATRICIANS share a common reaction to the Food and Drug Administration's decision to require pharmaceutical companies to test the effects of new drugs on children: It's about time.Only 20 percent of the prescription drugs on the market today have been voluntarily tested for safety and effectiveness on children. That means pediatricians too frequently are forced to guess when making critical decisions about the drugs and dosages they prescribe for their youngest patients.And unfortunately, even a doctor's educated guesses can be deadly.

WASHINGTON - -As a candidate for president, Barack Obama criticized drug companies and the influence they wield in Washington. He ran a TV ad targeting the industry's chief lobbyist, former Louisiana Rep. Billy Tauzin, and the role Tauzin played in preventing Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices. Since the election, Tauzin has morphed into the president's partner. He has been invited to the White House a half-dozen times in recent months. There, he says, he secured an agreement that the administration would not try to overturn the Medicare drug policy that Obama had criticized.

Rental property law protects communities Councilman T. Bryan McIntire's opposition to the new Baltimore County rental law is well-intentioned but unfounded ("Most Balto. Co. rental properties conform to new law," Feb. 8). Towson University fails to provide housing for about 30 percent of its students. And the surrounding communities suffer as a result of its campus housing shortage. Don Gerding, the chairman of the Rodgers Forge External Affairs Committee, and I have frequently reported problems with rental housing in the area to housing code enforcement authorities and county police.

As the nation's president-elect and incoming Congress mull a variety of fixes for the nation's ailing health care system, there's at least one relatively simple step that could be taken to make prescription drugs more affordable for hundreds of thousands of Marylanders. It requires only that the federal government give states the power to enable lower and middle-income families to buy prescription drugs at the same prices paid by the Medicaid program. It wouldn't cost taxpayers a dime but would make prescription drugs 40 percent to 45 percent more affordable for participants.

Children in rainy areas may develop disorder autism Children in California, Oregon and Washington are more likely to develop autism if they lived in counties with higher levels of annual rainfall when they were 3 or younger, suggesting that something about wet weather may trigger the disorder, according to a study released last week. Among possible explanations: Bad weather could lead to more TV and video viewing, which in very young children have been linked to language-development problems.

WASHINGTON - Under pressure from critics in Congress and elsewhere to curb expensive marketing to doctors, the leading drug-industry lobby recommended yesterday that companies stop treating physicians to restaurant meals and other handouts. The industry group, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said it was revising its voluntary marketing guidelines in order to make sure that sales efforts focus on giving doctors the latest, most accurate information about drugs. However, the new recommendations take aim at practices that are already losing favor and would eliminate only a small fraction of the estimated $20 billion a year the companies spend on marketing to doctors.

Wrong time to limit generic medications I was very alarmed by the news that generic medicines may be blocked and replaced by higher-cost, brand-name medicines ("Cost of medicine could increase," June 17). I am a heart patient, and I take eight medications and supplements. All are generic, except one. My health care provider insists on generic drugs if they are available. And I believe this is the right thing to do; it saves me lots of money - money the big pharmaceutical companies do not get. So no wonder the drug firms are mad. But do not feel sorry for the big drug companies.

WASHINGTON - Patients in Maryland and other states could face higher costs and delays getting prescriptions filled if a new push by major drugmakers to curb sales of generic drugs wins out, according to health officials and pharmacy specialists. Large pharmaceutical companies have been waging war against inexpensive generic drugs for years at the national level. Now they are taking their fight to the states, promoting proposals that would mean pharmacists could no longer automatically replace certain brand-name drugs with no-name counterparts.

WASHINGTON -- Actor Dennis Quaid detailed for Congress the accidental drug overdose that nearly killed his newborn twins last year, and urged legislators yesterday to preserve a patient's option to hold drug and medical device makers liable for medication errors. Choking up once, Quaid lent his high profile to Democrats seeking to block a Bush administration effort to immunize companies from many such suits if their products had approval from the Food and Drug Administration. The actor recalled for a House committee his family's 41-hour ordeal anxiously waiting for the twins to recover.

The news this week that Merck & Co. conducted research on its own drug and paid prominent scientists to lend their names to the studies came as no surprise to many people in medicine. Researchers and ethicists say scientists are often paid to be listed as authors of ghostwritten studies in scientific journals, a practice they say undermines the public's already sagging confidence in research. "We've got to stop this," said Dr. Catherine D. DeAngelis, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, which had an article on the topic this week.

In health centers at hundreds of colleges and universities around the country, young women are paying sharply higher prices for prescription contraceptives because of a change in federal law. The increases have meant that some students using popular birth control pills and other products are paying three and four times as much as they did several months ago. The higher prices have also affected about 400 community health centers nationwide used by...