2021 News

PharmedOut In the News - 2021

November 2021

• November 15: Research Associate Dave Stanke and Dr. Fugh-Berman published, "Cover hearing aids, not questionable Alzheimer's drug," in The Chicago Tribune. 

• November 16: Dr. Fugh-Berman was a guest on Chicago's WGN Radio 720, addressing Aduhelm and how hearing loss can lead to cognitive decline. Her segment can be streamed here. 

• November 22: "Targeting Black and Hispanic communities for dementia drugs," by Caroline Renko and Naisa Rahman was published in the Washington Times. The op-ed exposes how Biogen is targeting Black and Latinx populations for Aduhelm (aducanumab) even though the drug wasn't tested in these populations.

• November 26: Dr. Fugh-Berman was quoted in, "Should Doctors Be Embarrassed by TV's 'Dopesick'?" in MedPage Today. 

October 2021

• October 8th: "Any marketing message that a pharmaceutical company can get into the voice of a third party is a more effective marketing message for them,” Dr. Fugh-Berman said in Julie Lurie and Ryan Little's article Inside Purdue Pharma's Multimillion-Dollar Payouts to Politicians and Pill-Pushers in Mother Jones. 

• Dr. Fugh-Berman testified at the FDA's Reconsidering Mandatory Opioid Prescriber Education Through a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) in an Evolving Opioid Crisis Public Workshop on October 13, 2021. She advocated for any mandatory CME as part of a REMS to be free from industry. She concluded, "Mandatory CME on opioids should be required; but that CME must not be industry-supported in any way. That means no direct or indirect industry funding, no industry-paid planners, faculty, content providers, or presenters; and accreditors who are not pharma-funded." A recording of her testimony can be found here.

• October 21st: PharmedOut's survey of opioid prescribing among dentists found that dentists still prescribe opioids even though they know NSAIDs work just as well. The study was published in the Journal of the American Dental Association. It prompted news coverage in U.S. News, Healthline, The Lown Institute newsletter, HealthDay News and internationally in Germany's zm online. 

• Our "Do We All Have Alzheimer's?" webinar was held on October 25, 2021. Dr. Susan Molchan and Dr. Peter Whitehouse had a lively discussion about Alzheimer's, drugs that target beta amyloid, and how research funding has primarily focused on amyloid. You can view a recording of the event here. 

September 2021

• September: Dr. Fugh-Berman was a guest on the AMA Journal of Ethics podcast episode, "Ethics Talk: Medical Device Representatives in the Surgical Suite."

• September 17: Judy Butler's op-ed, "Caution warranted before using new Alzheimer's drug," exposed marketing messages and misleading claims in Biogen's "educational" website, targeting physicians, on mild cognitive impairment. 

• September 25th: "It's not education. It's all advertising and it's very well disguised," said Dr. Fugh-Berman of pharma-funded continuing medical education. "...often you can't tell what the marketing messages are," she explained to NJ.com for their article, "Ciattarelli often touts his 'Main Street' business on the campaign, but it was no mom-and-pop operation."

• This September, Dr. Fugh-Berman was also quoted in, "Under the microscope: Irish pharma's engagement with doctors," for The Medical Independent. 

August 2021

• August 5th: Desperate patients “don’t necessarily think is that this drug could make me worse,” Fugh-Berman told the Association of Health Care Journalists, in an article about disease awareness campaigns.  

• Also on August 5th: Dr. Fugh-Berman was quoted in a Mother Jones story, “The Untold Story of Purdue Pharma’s Cozy Relationship with the American Medical Association.” Julia Lurie’s great article examines the close relationship between the American Medical Association (AMA), Purdue Pharma, and other pharmaceutical companies.

• August 6: Dr. Fugh-Berman was a guest on Connecticut Public Radio’s Where We Live episode, “Opioid Use Disorder: A Growing Epidemic Within An Epidemic.” In this episode, she explained the role of patient advocacy groups in opioid marketing, and dentists' opioid prescription habits  

• August 9th: Dr. Fugh-Berman was interviewed for this story in Kaiser Health News that exposed the close relationships between medical device sales representatives and surgeons. Dr. Fugh-Berman explained, “Relying on sales reps in the OR is appalling. We need to come up with a better system.”

• Also on August 9th: Sayeed Shahriar, an intern at PharmedOut, analyzed Open Payments data from a group of oncologists who signed on to a letter supporting Janet Woodcock, acting FDA Commissioner, as the permanent commissioner. He found that “61 of the 95 oncologists accepted almost $14.5 million from industry between 2013 and 2019.” His analysis was used to support this STAT article.

• Dr. Fugh-Berman was also quoted on August 9th by Fred Schulte in his article: "Injuries Mount as Sales Reps for Device Makers Cozy Up to Surgeons, Even in Operating Rooms,"and was republished in Pain News Network. 

• August 11th: Dr. Fugh-Berman was quoted in, "Debate Erupts (Again) Over Women's Libido Drugs," an Undark Magazine story, and was republished in Salon (August 20th) and The Wire (August 28th). 

• August 18th: "Critics question presence of medical device reps in operating rooms," by Marc Iskowitz featured a quote from Dr. Fugh-Berman for Kaiser Health News in a story for Medical Marketing and Media. “Relying on sales reps in the O.R. is appalling. We need to come up with a better system,” she told KHN.

• August 21: Dr. Fugh-Berman was interviewed for this story in Kaiser Health News that exposed the close relationships between medical device sales representatives and surgeons.

• Also in August: Dr. Fugh-Berman presented “PharmedOut: fighting Pharma’s influence on medicine for 15 years,” at Family Medicine Grand Rounds at Georgetown University Medical Center.

• Additionally, Dave Stanke, Patricia Bencivenga, and Dr. Fugh-Berman testified at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) public hearing on the National Coverage Determination Analysis for Monoclonal Antibodies that Target Amyloid for the Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease. Along  with Sophia Phillips, the team also submitted written testimony advocating against CMS coverage of Aduhelm.

July 2021

• On July 16th: PharmedOut intern Patricia Bencivenga, a Health and the Public Interest masters student, and Dr. Fugh-Berman published "Do we all have Alzheimer’s?" in the Baltimore Sun. The op-ed exposes Biogen and Eisai's “It’s Time We Know” website, a purportedly educational website on Mild Cognitive Impairment with a Symptoms Quiz we dare you pass.  The op-ed has been republished in Mad in America (July 30th), Jewish World Review (July 20th), West Hawaii Today (July 20th) and The Press of Atlantic City. It was also mentioned in articles by BioSpace (July 23rd), PharmaLive (July 28th), and Medical Marketing and Media (July 26th).

• July 23rd: Kaiser Health News interviewed Dr. Fugh-Berman about Biogen’s It’s Time We Know campaign. "It's particularly egregious because they are trying to convince people with either normal memories or normal age-related decline that they are ill and they need a drug," says Fugh-Berman in Julie Appleby’s article, “Facing Headwinds on New Alzheimer’s Drug, Biogen Launched Controversial Campaign.”

June 2021

• June 4th: Access Dr. Fugh-Berman's rebuttal to the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), which argued that it “oversees a system that sustains a bulwark between industry influence and accredited CME". In fact, as Dr. Fugh-Berman discusses, the ACCME is ineffectual in mitigating industry influence on CME.

• Also on June 4th: "Industry-funded CME is designed to create or expand markets for products that might be unnecessary, inferior, or overpriced... By affecting medical discourse, industry-funded CME distorts doctors’ understanding of diseases and treatments, and ultimately harms patients." writes Dr. Fugh-Berman in a recent BMJ article, "Industry-funded medical education is always promotion," which has garnered over 9000 reads since publication.

• In June, PharmedOut also published an important study in Pain Physician on how the continuing medical education that the FDA required opioid manufacturers to fund actually promotes marketing messages that will increase opioid prescriptions. You can find the study here. The study was authored by former PharmedOut interns Ben Goodwin MS, David Lim MS, Dan Paglia MS, and Matthew Dempsey MS; PharmedOut research fellow, Judy Butler MS; Bonnie O’Connor PhD; and Dr. Fugh-Berman.

May 2021

• May 26th: Dr. Fugh-Berman was quoted in a BMJ article by Paul Thacker which questioned if the disclosures given by members on national COVID-19 vaccine advisory panels in the US and the UK were adequate.

• May 28th: Dr. Fugh-Berman was a guest on the AMA Journal of Ethics podcast episode, "Ethics Talk: Medical Device Representatives in the Surgical Suite."

April 2021

• April 2nd: Dr. Fugh-Berman was quoted in Medium in an article about drugs aimed at increasing female libido. She stated, “The main effect of the two drugs that have been approved for low libido is sedation. If you are unhappy with your sex life or distressed about your sex life and you take a sedative, you maybe might be less distressed about it, but that’s not really getting to the core issue.”

• April 13th and 14th: PharmedOut's project manager, Caroline Renko, and Dr. Fugh-Berman published two op-eds this month on COVID-19. The first, published in The Detroit News, discusses why the Tuskegee syphilis study is not the primary reason behind lower vaccination rates in the Black community. The second op-ed, published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, stresses the importance of mandating COVID-19 vaccinations in care facilities. 

• April 16th: Dr. Joel Lexchin and Dr. Fugh-Berman published an article in the Journal of General Internal Medicine on why the Physician Payments Sunshine Act has not changed physician, consumer, or patient behavior and how disclosure is not enough to address industry relationships in medicine. The article was also covered by Mad in America.

March 2021

• March 10th: Dr. Joel Lexchin and Dr. Fugh-Berman published an article in the Journal of General Internal Medicine on why the Physician Payments Sunshine Act has not changed physician, consumer, or patient behavior and how disclosure is not enough to address industry relationships in medicine. The article was also covered by Mad in America.

• Also in March, Dr. Tony Scialli,  Keene Saavedra, PharmD and Dr. Fugh-Berman published an article, "The Benefits and Risks of Adherence to Medical Therapy" in the Journal of Scientific Practice and Integrity.

• On March 23rd, PharmedOut hosted a webinar with Dr. Andrew Kolodny, "False Narratives & Manufactured Controversies about the Opioid Crisis," which was run entirely by PharmedOut interns. You can find the recording of the webinar here. 

February 2021

• On February 17th, Dr. Fugh-Berman gave a public seminar lecture on "How Drug Companies Affect Medical Knowledge" for the Health and the Public Interest program at Georgetown University. You can view the seminar here.

• Along with other members on the board for Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing (PROP), Dr. Fugh-Berman and PharmedOut fellow, Judy Butler, signed a letter addressed to the American Medical Association refuting some of their recent claims that the US "no longer has a prescription opioid-driven epidemic" and their stance on the CDC Guidelines. The BMJ covered the story here on February 17th.

• February 25: Judy Butler's column, Purdue’s most successful strategy no one is talking about was translated into Spanish and featured in Salud y Fármacos' bulletin. Salud y Fármacos is an international non-profit organization that promotes access and the appropriate use of pharmaceuticals to Spanish-speaking populations.

January 2021

• January 28: Medscape also published an article on the novel US family residency programs study: "When asked how these trends compare to residencies in other specialties, the authors said that no other research has looked at influence for one specialty over three different time periods."

• January 19: STAT News published an article on Dr. Steve Brown's and Dr. Fugh-Berman's study on the interactions between pharmaceutical companies and US family residency programs.