Things are still beyond grim as the work on Washington State’s budget continues. However, on February 4, there was a more hopeful sign when the Senate approved its version of the Supplemental Budget, including a provision to continue the Basic Health Program, although in reduced scope, by drawing on the Life Sciences Discovery Fund. The [...]
Archive for the ‘Ethics’ Category
Another drug price story that defies logic
Posted in Access to Medicines, Consumer Protection, Economics of Health Care, Ethics, Health Care Marketing, Health Insurance on 15 December 2010 | Leave a Comment »
A friend recently shared this personal story with me, in the hopes that it will inspire people to demand price controls on drugs, as well as an end to the Rx profiteering by insurance companies. This is a story about a commonly-prescribed generic drug, levothyroxine, used for hypothyroidism and other thyroid conditions. The fact that [...]
Selling Sickness Conference
Posted in Access to Medicines, Consumer Protection, Economics of Health Care, Ethics, Global Health, Health Care Marketing, Promotions on 11 October 2010 | 1 Comment »
The first international “Selling Sickness” Conference held October 7-8 in Amsterdam drew some 200 participants from around the globe to discuss the issues and trends in marketing of prescription drugs. While most attendees were from Europe, all regions of the world were represented at the event. Slide shows of the presentations, along with a list [...]
Conference Time
Posted in Consumer Protection, Economics of Health Care, Ethics, Global Health, Health Care Marketing, Health Disparities, Healthcare Inequalities, Language Access, Language Services on 26 September 2010 | 3 Comments »
Many important conferences are scheduled from September to the end of the year. Last week I was fortunate to be able to attend the second annual meeting of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health at the University of Washington here in Seattle. I’ll report on that later. Some other notable conferences, including those in [...]
Komen in the News Again for Unbecoming Public Behavior
Posted in Cause Marketing, Ethics, Health Care Marketing, Promotions on 9 August 2010 | 2 Comments »
No surprise to me read to read the WSJ report Charity Brawl: Nonprofits Aren’t So Generous When a Name’s at Stake, detailing how the Susan G. Komen Foundation is aggressively going after small disease charities who use the phrase “for the cure” and/or the color pink in their fundraising efforts and programming. The article includes [...]
More Health Headlines of Note
Posted in Access to Medicines, Assistance, Consumer Protection, Discrimination, Economics of Health Care, Ethics, Health Care Marketing on 3 June 2010 | Leave a Comment »
From Pharmalot, May 24, 2010: Wyeth Marketing Targeted Blacks Illegally: Lawsuit A pair of former hospital sales reps filed a whistleblower suit alleging Wyeth, which is now owned by Pfizer, illegally promoted its Rapamune kidney transplant drug for use with other organs and targeted African-Americans, even though this is a high-risk patient group, according to [...]
