Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Jarvik and Pfizer

Apparently Pfizer has done something worse than overcharge(Gouge? Extort?) 80 year old ladies for off label use of viagra to treat their pulmonary hypertension. (Viagra costs about 10 dollars for 100 mg, whereas Revatio, which is the same thing (sildenafil), is marketed at 10 dollars for a 20 mg pill which is usually taken three times daily. Change the name, triple the cost, the old bait and switch...)

Pfizer, according to our duly elected representatives in the US Congress ( John Dingell and Bart Stupak), has gotten the inventor of the artificial heart, Dr. Robert Jarvik, who has degrees in both Engineering and Medicine, to speak for lipitor in between rowing sessions. This is supposedly misleading because he allegedly is not licensed to actually practice medicine, therefore his advice on an effective lipid lowering agent should not be trusted. hmmmm. This logic is somewhat tenable (more tenable is the idea that he is decidedly not an expert on lipid physiology), however the irony of what appears to be at face value an honest fairly conservative advertising campaign blowing up in Pfizer's face is more palpable than an atherosclerotic thrombus in the LAD.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What is an atherosclerotic thrombus in the LAD? Unlocking this would help laypeeps parse your final sentence, doc.

sunseasurf said...

that would be a dumptruck load of lard blocking the superhighway of your heart.