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For days now, the health care legislation in the Senate has been stalled. Democrats are divided over a proposed amendment that would let consumers buy pharmaceuticals from abroad. During the presidential campaign, Obama promised to allow such purchases. But earlier this year he announced his opposition in return for pharmaceutical companies promising to spend at least $150 million, and possibly as much as $200 million, to push his health care legislation. President Obama obviously faces a dilemma: either he keeps the campaign promise he made to voters or he keep his later promise to drug companies. Passing the proposed drug...

NaturalNews) The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released a report indicting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for allowing health professionals convicted of crimes to perform research for the agency and to supervise patients' safety during clinical trials. The FDA is required by law to disqualify from positions within its organization doctors that have been convicted of fraud or other crimes. Yet the GAO is publicizing that it takes an average of four years for criminals to be disbarred from their positions. In one case, a doctor who was convicted of 53 counts of criminal offense was allowed...

Democrats in Congress asked for two separate investigations of drug industry pricing Wednesday as they continue working on legislation to overhaul the nation’s health care system. Responding to news reports of unusually high wholesale price increases in brand-name prescription drugs, four House leaders and one senator asked for government reviews of the pricing practices. Although drug makers challenge the theory, some experts say the run-up in wholesale prices may be partly related to the industry’s concerns about future cost containment under any health care legislation. “Recent studies have indicated that the industry may be artificially raising prices for certain pharmaceutical...

Pfizer (PFE) has laid off 26,300 employees since 2005, and hopes eventually to lay off a total of 30,900 through 2012, according to its 10-Q filing with the SEC. The company had several rounds of layoffs before its acquisition of Wyeth in an attempt to get $6 billion in annual savings out of its business model. The company has said it wants to ax about 19,500 jobs to make the Wyeth merger work. The new company will have about 130,000 workers. The layoffs are ongoing, Pfizer said: In the third quarter of 2009, we reduced our workforce by approximately 1,100...

A pro-life organization is blasting a Switzerland-based cosmetics manufacturer whose website openly admits some of its products were developed from the tissues of an aborted baby. Children of God for Life is a non-profit organization focused on the bioethics of embryonic tissue use in medicine and manufacturing. One of its current campaigns includes petitioning pharmaceutical companies to produce safe, effective alternatives to vaccines derived or cultivated from aborted fetal tissue.

Julie Gibbons takes a measurement in the lab at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland's School of Pharmacy in Baltimore. The college is one of four U.S. colleges opening new pharmacy schools this fall semester at a time when the nation has a shortage of pharmacists. (CNS/Bob Roller) By Chaz MuthCatholic News Service WASHINGTON (CNS) -- With a projected national shortage of pharmacists, two U.S. Catholic colleges just inaugurated new pharmacy schools to help fill the gap in meeting the country's pharmaceutical needs. Seventy students at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland in Baltimore began their first...

Progressives Turn on Obama as Air America Exposes ‘Fascist’ Drug Deal Charming Liar’: Progressives Turn on Obama as Air America Exposes ‘Fascist’ Drug Deal http://www.breitbart.tv/charming-liar-progressives-turn-on-obama-as-air-america-exposes-fascist-drug-deal/

Drug Companies Resist White House Call to Reduce Rights to Exclusive Drug DataFOXNews.com Thursday, August 13, 2009 Drug companies that had agreed to support the Obama administration on health care reforms have found themselves once more at odds with the president, this time on exclusive rights to produce drugs that treat illnesses like arthritis, cancer and multiple sclerosis. **SNIP** The debate has rattled a deal that had been made between the White House and the drug companies to get the pharmaceutical industry on board with health care reform. In that deal, PhRMA agreed to cut its expected costs for drugs...

Here's the link. In exchange, the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) agreed to cut $80 billion in projected costs to taxpayers and senior citizens over ten years. Or, as the memo says: "Commitment of up to $80 billion.. The health care lobbyist said that what deal still exists is uncertain, as a result of House pressure. "Now the White House is backing away from it, as you know, because of pressure from the House, because the House was not a party to the deal," he said. "The Speaker put enormous pressure on the White House, [saying], 'We weren't a...

I did everything I could—including risking life in prison. Back in the 1980s-1990s, the Life Extension Foundation® crusaded to enlighten Americans about the economic ruination that would occur if this country’s corrupt drug regulatory structure was not abolished. At the behest of pharmaceutical interests, the FDA brutally retaliated against us. What I am about to divulge is a shocking revelation about why prescription drugs cost so much. I want to remind readers what happens when an apathetic public allows archaic government regulations to rule the marketplace. In the 1940s, Argentina was the ninth wealthiest country in the world. At one...

A memo obtained by the Huffington Post confirms that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly agreed to precisely the sort of wide-ranging deal that both parties have been denying over the past week. The memo, which according to a knowledgeable health care lobbyist was prepared by a person directly involved in the negotiations, lists exactly what the White House gave up, and what it got in return. It says the White House agreed to oppose any congressional efforts to use the government's leverage to bargain for lower drug prices or import drugs from Canada -- and also agreed...

As a political strategist, Big Pharma lobbyist Billy Tauzin is starting to look less like Dr. Faustus and more like Jack, trading away his industry for magic beans. Last week Mr. Tauzin ostentatiously blabbed to the media that his industry's deal to help fund ObamaCare with $80 billion in prescription-drug discounts was really protection money. In particular, he bragged that he had secured promises from the White House that President Obama would fend off Congressional Democrats who want to "negotiate" drug prices, which in practice means price controls. For days, the White House continued to confirm Mr. Tauzin's understanding: "We...

Government health officials in the Czech Republic have refused to buy H1N1 flu vaccines from US pharmaceutical firm Baxter International, citing safety concerns. According to a report by the Czech News Agency CTK, one of the largest English language news outlets in the country, the Czech Health Ministry has halted talks with Baxter citing “the firm’s inability to guarantee that the vaccine is safe and who will bear the risks for possible side-effects.” The country plans to buy vaccines to cover 25 percent of its population of ten million, but has said it will not buy swine flu vaccine from...

NEW DELHI: China has admitted that its pharmaceutical companies were involved in shipping fake drugs labeled 'Made In India' to Nigeria. "The Chinese authorities have accepted this position (that its firms were involved in the case)," an official said. "The Indian government took up the matter with the Nigerian authorities and on further probe, it was found that the drugs had actually originated in China and not in India," he added. In June, Nigeria's drug regulatory authority National Agency for Food and Drug Administration And Control (NAFDAC) had reported about the detention of a large consignment of fake anti-malarial generic...

The LATimes is once again trying to sell another Obama healthcare fairy tale to an unsuspecting public. This time, ABC is reporting that Obama has “given a seat at the table” of the healthcare debate to former Louisiana congressman Billy Tauzin who now represents some powerful drug companies. The Times is reporting this as if it is meaningful news. Unfortunately for all concerned it is not. For the Times, Tom Hamburger starts off mentioning how Obama lambasted Tauzin and his lobbying interests during the recent presidential campaign but that he’s done an about face by inviting Tauzin to the White...

WASHINGTON — The drug industry has authorized its lobbyists to spend as much as $150 million on television commercials supporting President Obama’s health care overhaul, beginning over the August Congressional recess, people briefed on the plans said Saturday. The unusually large scale of the industry’s commitment to the cause helps explain some of a contentious back-and-forth playing out in recent days between the odd-couple allies over a deal that the White House struck with the industry in June to secure its support. The terms of the deal were not fully disclosed. Both sides had announced that the drug industry would...

The news from Barbara Wagner's doctor was bad, but the rejection letter from her insurance company was crushing. The 64-year-old Oregon woman, whose lung cancer had been in remission, learned the disease had returned and would likely kill her. Her last hope was a $4,000-a-month drug that her doctor prescribed for her, but the insurance company refused to pay. What the Oregon Health Plan did agree to cover, however, were drugs for a physician-assisted death. Those drugs would cost about $50. "It was horrible," Wagner told ABCNews.com. "I got a letter in the mail that basically said if you want...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The nation's drugmakers stand ready to spend $150 million to help President Barack Obama overhaul health care this fall, according to numerous officials, a staggering sum that could dwarf attempts to derail his chief domestic priority. The White House and allies in Congress are well aware of the effort by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a somewhat surprising political alliance, given the industry's recent history of siding with Republicans and the Democrats' disdain for special interests. The campaign, now in its early stages, includes television advertising under PhRMA's own name and commercials aired in conjunction with...

Big Pharma and probably Big Insurance have probably kicked in with the Democrats in DCWhile this initially may appear to be a good business move on their part, the boards of these companies may not CLEARLY realize that their owners are the productive class.It's time to sell every stock and mutual fund that hold these stocks. The board must hear from the "owners".They think $80bil was affordable...an $80bil that would come out of the consumers pocket. However, I wonder how affordable their decision will seem in the light of their stock price dropping 50%...or 60...or 75%?

The nation's drugmakers stand ready to spend $150 million to help President Barack Obama overhaul health care this fall, according to numerous officials, a staggering sum that could dwarf attempts to derail his chief domestic priority.