The recent announced merger of drug giants Pfizer and Wyeth is another great argument for Congress to fund independent, unbiased research to help doctors and patients know which drugs and treatments work best – rather than who has the cleverest commercials and marketing slogans.

Harvard instructor Dr. John Abramson explains how the merger will likely mean fewer breakthrough drugs and treatments, and more marketing designed to get you to buy Pfizer’s products.

“Pfizer's purchase of Wyeth will diminish its imperative to develop new products that genuinely improve health …the new Pfizer will have even greater marketing power to convince doctors and patients to use its products (often in lieu of less expensive and more effective approaches),” Abramson writes.

As the doctor points out, the real problem with American medicine is “that medical knowledge itself has been turned into a commodity, produced and disseminated with the primary goal of optimizing profits rather than health.” He notes that 85 percent of clinical trials are paid for by companies, with the odds greatly in favor of those commercially funded trials picking the sponsor's drug as the “treatment of choice.”

Nearly a third of what we now spend on health care is estimated to do nothing to improve our health, and may even harm it. A large part of that wasteful spending is the lack of independent research that tells us which drugs or treatments work best for a given medical condition. Right now in America, a drug company need only show that their latest drug works better than a sugar pill to be put on the market; not that it works better than other drugs out there.

A vital first step in getting doctors and patients information on what works best and to end wasteful spending is funding ‘comparative effectiveness research.’ This research compares similar treatments, such as drugs, or different treatments, such as surgery vs. drug therapy, to determine what is most effective at treating a given condition. In other words, if you have clogged arteries, are the outcomes better if you get surgery and take medication to avoid a heart attack, or are they just as good for medication alone?

Consumer Reports uses this type of research to help patients and their doctors find the most effective, affordable medications for 20 different condtions. But right now, less than one-tenth of 1 percent spent on all health research goes to directly comparing the effectiveness of treatments.

That may soon change. Congress has included $1.1 billion in the proposed economic stimulus package to fund this important research, and momentum is growing in the health community to support a well-designed, national comparative effectiveness program that operates with full transparency, scientific integrity and public input. After all, shouldn’t you and your doctor know what works best, not just what looks best in a 15-second TV commercial?

comments (1)

The connection between Pfizer and Wyeth is one more death knell for our ability to withstand the horrible effects of Big Pharma. Now they will have less competition and more control. As it is Pfizer is destroying people's health and lives by pushing medications on us that we don't need and then rolling them over to the pet industry when humans don't buy them. One of these drugs (Rimadyl) is responsible for the death of hundreds of dogs whose owners unknowingly gave it to them due to Pfizer's promotion of the drug and refusal to acknowledge that it had these effects on particular breeds. See doghealth2@yahoo.com for more information. The FDA has not been responsible for stepping in and stopping this massacre. Pfizer is also responsible for evicting people from their homes in New Jersey because it wanted to take over a certain area for it's offices. It got the government to agree to evict the people under some kind of land ownership. Now they can spend more money and more time forcing drugs down our throats and killing us.

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