Simply Irresistible: Abbott Tampering with Wikipedia Entries

According to Patients Not Patents, a group that "challenges the validity of medical patents before the United States Patent and Trademark Office," Abbott Laboratories is a serial Wikipedia tamperer.

Here's the press release:

Newly available data show that employees of Abbott Laboratories have been altering entries to Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia, to eliminate information questioning the safety of its top-selling drugs.

In July of 2007, a computer at Abbott Laboratories’ Chicago office was used to delete a reference to a Mayo Clinic study that revealed that patients taking the arthritis drug Humira faced triple the risk of developing certain kinds of cancers and twice the risk of developing serious infections. The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2006.

The same computer was used to remove articles describing public interest groups' attempt to have Abbott's weight-loss drug Meridia banned after the drug was found to increase the risk of heart attack and stroke in some patients.

The site's editors restored the deleted information, but Abbott's activities illustrate drug companies’ eagerness to suppress safety concerns, said Jeffrey Light, Executive Director of the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group Patients not Patents. "The argument that drug companies can be trusted to provide adequate safety information on their own products has been used by the pharmaceutical industry to fight against government regulation of consumer advertising. Clearly such trust is misplaced. As Abbott’s actions have demonstrated, drug companies will attempt to hide unfavorable safety information when they think nobody is watching."

The changes are part of over one thousand edits made from computers at Abbott's offices. The data was obtained from WikiScanner, an independent site that allows users to look up anonymous changes to Wikipedia articles.

According to CL Psych Blog, Wiki Scanner is "simply irresistible" and more people should use it to discover who's gaming the system (see "Amateur Sleuthing"):

"Pharmalot let us know that AstraZeneca had changed the Wikipedia entry for Seroquel (story via the Times of London). Read more at Wired and Forbes. But, why wait around for a journalist to break the story when you can do it yourself? The Wiki Scanner site is a wonderful tool for amateur sleuths such as myself. Wanna see which companies made changes to Wikipedia entries? Here's just one example: Edelman PR made a change to the Wikipedia for Celecoxib (Celebrex) and for Viagra."

'Round the Sphere: Cupcake Capers Continue, PharmaFraud Blog?

The AstraZeneca Cupcake Caper has escaped the gravity of the Pharma Blogosphere^TM and entered the realm of mainstream blogging.

These young ladies -- Nichelle, alizinha, and Rachel -- are
self-proclaimed cupcake fans and authors of the All Cupcakes, All the Time Blog (there had to be at least one blog dedicated to cupcakes!). The trio have picked up on the stories published recently in our part of the blog universe (see "Cupcakes and cancer controversy").

The cupcake blog's mission is to share with the world everything you wanted to know about cupcakes (I'm sure, one day, they will regret their homage to this tasty treat). That also seems like the mission of a few blogs in the Pharma Blogosphere.

The latest brouhaha was initiated by Ed Silverman at Pharmalot. He questioned how AZ expensed the pink cupcakes their reps allegedly handed out to patients in doctors' offices (see "Taxing Question: How Did AstraZeneca Account For Pink Cupcakes Given To Patients?").

I decided to post a reply to Ed's question in an attempt to show that it is both possible to expense such items and that it may violate AZ policy but does not necessarily violate HIPAA privacy regulations (see "On Cupcakes and HIPAA").

The pace of commentary then picked up when Ed and Peter Rost of Question Authority apparently simultaneously received and published a copy of an AZ internal memo from the AZ Group of Seven (see "Astrazeneca's Cupgate: Don't Feed the Patients" and "AstraZeneca FORBIDS PINK CUPCAKES to patients!"); the memo, dated May 1, specifically forbade AZ reps from feeding cupcakes to patients.

As a proponent of the Free Lunch for Patients Program, I was outraged and railed against this AZ policy in my own post to Pharma Marketing Blog (see "AZ: No Cupcakes for You!"):

I cannot see how it is perfectly OK for reps to feed pizza to docs, but not give cupcakes to patients!

It’s time that we patients stood up and demanded our share of the pharma giveaway program!

Citing HIPAA as an excuse for not giving patients cupcakes is a red herring. That law was never intended to leave patients in the cold while docs feasted on gourmet deli sandwiches!

It’s all because of pharma bloggers — Ed Silverman, Peter Rost, Jack Friday — that this memo was written!

Does anyone think that a cupcake could influence me to ask my doctor for a course of Arimidex? Certainly not!

On to more serious matters...

Peter Rost may soon share the whistleblower limelight with another blog entry to the Pharma Blogosphere: PharmaFraud. This new orb is still a random collection of gaseous matter and claims:

"When this site goes live the Pharma Industry will long for the days when Peter Rost was their biggest worry."

I don't know if the blog can fulfill this promise. To beat Rost at the pharma whistleblower game, you have to have some pretty shocking stories to tell!

No fear, Question Authority and PharmaFraud seem intent on collaboration rather than competition. We'll see.

Hey Guys! A Kitty Fight!

A "Cupcake Kitty Fight" is in full swing!

You recall that Peter Rost exposed AstraZeneca's plan to have sales reps distribute cupcakes to chemotherapy patients (see "AstraZeneca's Secret Oncology Plans: Sell Cancer Drugs to Patients with Pink Cupcakes").

This issue has generated heat between some members of the Pharma Blogosphere^TM and the pharma trade press, especially "Pharma Blogs: Week in Review," published by Engel Publishing Partners and written by Christiane Truelove, editor of MedAdNews.

Black Kitty -- a rare women blogger member of the Pharma Blogosphere (see "It's Raining Men in the Pharma Blogosphere!") -- in particular has taken exception to Truelove's view that there is nothing wrong with giving cancer chemotherapy patients cupcakes (see "SIN = MedAdNews 'Pharma Blogs: Week in Review'").

Black Kitty (BK) claims not to be shouting, but her all CAPs comments say otherwise:

"DO YOUR RESEARCH!!! THIS BLACK KITTY HAS HER EARS BACK AND IS SPRINGING INTO ATTACK. ALSO SEE YOUR BLOGGERS FOR MORE WOMEN, BUT LOOK AT "DEPRESSION INTROSPECTION" FOR A GREAT WOMAN'S POINT OF VIEW ON PHARMA. ALSO LOOK AT THE KAISER WHISTLE BLOWER, AND OF COURSE, YOURS TRULY!"

YIKES, BATMAN!

Seems that BK is railing more against us guys than Truelove. But BK does lash into Truelove's "I would be very happy to have them" comment:

MAYBE YOU WOULD, BUT WHEN IF I WAS LEAVING CHEMO, I BELIEVE I WOULD FIND THE DISPLAY DISTASTEFUL FOR SO MANY REASONS. IF YOU ASK, I WILL BE GLAD TO LIST THEM.

Why not list them, Black Kitty?

BK goes on to discuss the link between sugar and cancer, by which time I have tuned out. Not that I don't believe there MAY be a link, but BK shifted her fight from Truelove to pharmaceutical marketers, which raises my fur:

DO THE MARKETERS REALLY THINK THE CONSUMERS ARE THIS STUPID? I HAVE YET TO MEET ANYONE, OF ANY LEVEL OF EDUCATION, WHO THINKS POSITIVELY OF THE RECENT MARKETING OF THE MAJOR PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES. THE BLUE PILL, THE GAS, THE DEPRESSION, THE PAIN, THE GIBBERISH ADS, THE ALLERGY ADS, AND MOST OF THE DTC MARKETING IS GOING TO BACKFIRE, I PROMISE. I TALK TO HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE, AND MOST PEOPLE IN CANADA THINK THE ADS ARE MISLEADING AND PEDANTIC, AND APPEAL TO THE MOST VULNERABLE INDIVIDUALS, WHO ARE DESPARATELY LOOKING FOR HELP FOR WHAT AILS THEM. TAKING ADVANTAGE LIKE THIS... WELL... IF U ARE GONNA SIN... DO IT IN A BIG WAY...

A ha! BK is Canadian, eh? I did not know that! That shapes the discussion for me in a whole new light! Me thinks the Canadians BK is speaking to are watching way too much American TV to be so critical of DTC! Don't they have anything better to do up there where DTC advertising is illegal?

BTW, if you are going to give gifts to patients, I think BK raises some important points about nutritional appropriateness. I have taken this a few steps further and suggested that pharma come up with "Guidelines for Gifts to Patients."

Bloggers Compete to Sling Mud at AZ; CafePharma Slings Back

Another day and another flurry of Rost e-mail and Rost posts that lead to posts on other blogs -- most notably pharmalot, BrandweekNRX, and PharmaGossip!

Even Rost is getting tired of the one-upmanship needed to keep up with the "journalist bloggers" who seem to have too many resources at their disposal.

In this mud-slinging contest it seems that anything is blogworthy -- even drivel posted on the CafePharma bulletin boards. All the aforementioned blogs have posted CafePharma comments or links to these comments (see here, here, and here).

However, they have left out the juiciest CafePharma comments, which I now will dutifully reproduce here.

"Group of seven of the biggest pussies... Stick your ethics up your ass. Posting BS on cafepharma is soooooo ethical. You and Michael Moore -looking out for society. I feel soooo comforted. One needs to have a nut sack before they start preaching about ethics." [Hat Tip to Pharma Ethics, My Foot! Blog]

"What next - Peter Rost reports that an anonymous insider at AZ HQ transcribed the writing on the men's bathroom wall and this just in "...Blogspot.com reports that AZ VIP shits here every morning at about ten-thirty and he just TEARS the place up... AZ VIP has stinkiest shit in all of pharma...". You heard it here first at AnonymousButTruePharmaPostings@TrueShit.Blogspot.com."

"Peter Peter - this just in. We have been backdating options, we are hiding costs with overseas funds transfers, we rigged the data on almost all our clinical trials, we put investigational drugs into the eyes of baby rabbits, we are against women, blacks, gays and middle aged white men, some of our employees speak foreign languages, our reps try to sell to doctors every day, and those are not raisins in the salad in the employee cafeteria, they are rat turds. Blog that asshole."

"This Rost guy is a Michael Moore crony that is an industry and medical community outcast that has nothing better to do then sit at his computer all day long blogging about things he knows little about, blowing things out of proportion, and surfing porn."

Ha, ha! I can see it now. Rost and Moore yukking it up, throwing back a few beers (well, beers for Moore, Martinis for Rost). Yep, they really don't like Rost. Surprise, Surprise!

They have a few choice words for the AZ Group of Seven. Whereas, PharmaGossip compares them to the Magnificent Seven, CafePharma AZ reps have something else in mind:

"Group of 7.....
looser
fuck-head
cock-sucker
douche bag
traitor
sloppy cunt
dick wipe

Get the picture ass holes?
Selfish egotistical assholes. If you are so interested in doing the right thing why don't you all get into a circle jerk and then have a deep discussion to discuss your exit strategy from AZ."

Ah! That CafePharma aroma! I love the smell of CafePharma! That smell...you know, that genitalia smell.. It smells like...Victory!

Some day this mud slinging's going to end....

'Round the Sphere: Rost Rocks, AZ PR Meltdown, New Name Exposed

Does Peter Rost (Question Authority) rock your world or wreck it?

If your world is the pharmaceutical industry and the AstraZeneca corner of it in particular, you probably would say that he is wrecking your world.

To us bloggers in the Pharma Blogosphere^TM, however, Rost Rocks!

Think of Rost in his best "deep throat" outfit sitting on a park bench in Wilmington, DE (US headquarters of AstraZeneca). Mysterious people stop by and sit next to him for a few minutes and then leave. Rost throws some crumbs on the ground and immediately a flock of pigeons swoops in and gobbles them up!

But Rost doesn't have to go anywhere to "scoop" the likes of journalist bloggers like Ed Silverman (Pharmalot) and Jim Edwards (BrandweekNRX). He merely has to sit in fromt of his computer in NJ somewhere and groups of seven come to him with incriminating evidence.

From time to time I too have been a pigeon feasting on Rost's crumbs. It certainly has been fun.

The latest crumb is the Powerpoint presentation "smoking gun" and "proof of questionable promotional practices in connection with selling of AstraZeneca’s cancer drug ARIMIDEX ® (anastrozole)", according to Rost (see "The AstraZeneca Controversy Increases with More Proof of Questionable Practices").

Rost won't reveal who at AZ created this PPT. He quotes an internal AZ memo:

"Below you'll find the updated BIG 1-98 presentation put together by [name redacted] and myself for your background use. Please make sure that you study this information thoroughly. Hopefully it will make understanding the benefits of Arimidex over letrozole a little easier for all of us. We really worked on simplifying all of the data for your use."

If you dig a little deeper in this dirt, you may be able to find out who created the slides. All you have to do is ... and you will find this person's name, which is...[find it here in the comments section].

P.S. Sorry! Upon special request from a person of interest, the comment referred to above, which revealed the name of the person who may have prepared the smoking gun slide deck has be temporarily deleted.