MinnPost - Questions raised about UW research group's 'cozy' relationship with Big Pharma

Questions raised about UW research group's 'cozy' relationship with Big Pharma

By Susan Perry | Published Wed, Apr 6 2011 8:17 am

As part of its excellent ongoing “Side Effects” series, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published an article last weekend that serves as yet another cautionary tale about universities, medicine and financial conflicts of interest.

The central player in this story is a University of Wisconsin pain research group, which has been “a quiet force in the effort to liberalize the way [narcotic painkillers] are prescribed and viewed in the United States,” according to Journal Sentinel reporter John Fauber.

And those efforts have paid off. "Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, as doctors became more willing to prescribe opioid analgesics for chronic conditions such as back pain, headache, and fibromylagia," writes Fauber, "prescriptions soared, though there are serious doubts about whether the drugs are beneficial for such conditions. Pain specialists say there has been a lack of research showing that the drugs are safe and effective for treating non-cancer pain for many months or years."

Yet, as the Journal Sentinel's investigation reveals, the UW Pain & Policy Studies Group and two of its top officials have repeatedly argued (in medical journals, before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, while serving on medical panels that advise physicians, and elsewhere) against tightening the prescribing rules for these drugs.

Financial incentive
They have a strong incentive to stay on that side of the argument. For during the time the UW pain research group and its officials have been advocating for more liberal prescribing policies for narcotic painkillers, they've also continued their “cozy personal financial relationships” with companies manufacturing these drugs — relationships that haven’t always been disclosed, Fauber reports.

"The narcotic painkiller industry's funding of the UW Pain Group is a unique twist on the drug and medical device industry's use of medical schools to sell more of its products, sometimes at the expense of patients," writes Fauber.

A lot of money is at stake, of course. Sales of just one prescription painkiller, OxyContin (made by Purdue Pharma, which has given money to the UW pain research group) reached $3 billion in 2010.

Unintentional overdose deaths have risen
But lives are also on the line, as underscored by statistics presented in the Journal Sentinel article:

• Unintentional overdose deaths from opioid painkillers grew from 2,901 in 1999 to 11,499 in 2007 — more than such deaths from heroin and cocaine combined. As Fauber reports, “Opioid deaths follow a track that is almost identical to the growth in sales of the drugs.”

• In 2007, so many opioid painkillers were being prescribed that a three-week dosing of Vicodin could be given, writes Fauber, to “every man, woman and child round-the-clock … for three weeks.”

You can read the Journal Sentinel's investigative article here.

Health | Wed, Apr 6 2011 8:17 am | Comment

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