Now about that Pfizer money ...
The world's largest drug maker is faced with a record-breaking $2.3 billion fine for illegally promoting its drugs by wooing doctors with free golf, massages, and resort junkets, according to federal prosecutors, as reported in this story.
On A Healthy Blog, Georgia Maheras of the advocacy group Health Care For All has some ideas about how the state could spend its $14.7 million portion of the huge settlement from Pfizer Inc.
Her picks: Prescription Advantage, the state program to help elderly and disabled people pay for their medications, and Academic Detailing, a program that brings comparative effectiveness research on drugs and to health care providers, following a model developed by Dr. Jerry Avorn and Dr. Stephen Soumerai of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital intended to counteract drug company marketing.
"It would be poetic justice to devote the funds Massachusetts receives from this settlement to two critical budget line items that reduce the cost of prescription drugs for the state and low-income residents," Maheras writes.
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blogger
Elizabeth Cooney is a former
health reporter for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, where she also was a
business reporter and an editor. Earlier in her career, she edited medical
books and journals at Little, Brown, and worked for Boston magazine.Boston Globe Health and Science staff:
- Gideon Gil, Health and Science Editor
- Ishani Ganguli, Short White Coat blogger
