Antitrust

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Too Profitable to Cure Brent Hoadley, Ph.D. See book keywords and concepts

In a news release dated 2004, the AIDS Foundation filed an antitrust and restraint of trade lawsuit against the pharmaceutical giant Abbott Laboratories. Novir, the "old" AIDS drug, underwent a five-fold increase (from $50/month to $250/ month). Abbott's "new" drug, which had Novir as a significant component, remained unchanged in price. Novir was considered the better product for some AIDS patients. Because of the cost increase, these patients were forced to the cheaper, diluted Novir product called Kaletra.

Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs Melody Petersen See book keywords and concepts

As the chairman of the Senate's antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee he had already taken on the steel and railroad industries. A few years earlier he had made the cover of Time magazine for his investigation of organized crime. In December 1959 Senator Kefauver turned his attention to the pharmaceutical industry and began what would be a long series of hearings probing its practices. Stories had begun to appear of patients searching for a cheaper antibiotic and finding them all priced the same, sometimes to the penny.

Big Pharma: Exposing the Global Healthcare Agenda Jacky Law See book keywords and concepts

Dr Jerry Avron has addressed this in the New England Journal of Medicine: Normally, antitrust laws would prohibit a manufacturer from offering a drug only when 'bundled' with another one of its products. It appears that Pfizer will avoid such antitrust prohibitions by having the FDA do its bundling for it. The FDA's acceptance of the proposed trial designs in effect acknowledges that since the new drug is Pfizer's intellectual property, the company's research plans are subject only to its own corporate prerogative.

Sugar Shock!: How Sweets and Simple Carbs Can Derail Your Life-- and How YouCan Get Back on Track Connie Bennett, C.H.H.C. with Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D. See book keywords and concepts

Slotting Allowances and the antitrust Laws." Testimony presented by Williard K. Tom, October 29, 1999. http://www.ftc.gov/os/1999/10/slotting991020.htm (accessed January 11, 2005). Finke, Michael. "Did the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act Affect Food Choices in the United States?" Selected conference paper. The American Consumer and the Changing Structure of the Pood System. Economic Research Service, USDA, May 4-5, 2000, Arlington, VA. Finke, Michael S., and D. Weaver. "The Relationship Between the Use of Sugar Content Information on Nutrition Labels and the Consumption of Added Sugars.

Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer Shannon Brownlee See book keywords and concepts

There are, of course, legal and practical barriers to such a plan. antitrust laws currently make it difficult for hospitals and doctors to share savings. Another impediment is the so-called Stark rules, which currently restrict, but don't eliminate, a doctor's ability to self-refer, or send patients to facilities the doctor owns an interest in or for tests from which the doctor will profit. But if these laws can be made, they can be revoked or amended in order to allow Medicare to bring down costs and improve medical practice.

Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About Kevin Trudeau See book keywords and concepts

This should be a violation of antitrust laws. The politicians do absolutely nothing. The Federal Trade Commission, the agency entrusted with protecting consumers against antitrust violations and monopolies such as this, does absolutely nothing. This is corruption at the highest levels of government. Many "newsletters" or books promote certain supplements. Most people do not know that the owners of these newsletters or books are the same people that actually sell the supplements. This is misleading and fraudulent, but very profitable for the big corporations.

Big Pharma: Exposing the Global Healthcare Agenda Jacky Law See book keywords and concepts

It appears that Pfizer will avoid such antitrust prohibitions by having the FDA do its bundling for it. The FDA's acceptance of the proposed trial designs in effect acknowledges that since the new drug is Pfizer's intellectual property, the company's research plans are subject only to its own corporate prerogative.26 The price of innovation All industries thrive on novelty; the differences with pharma are that, first, the degree of novelty can be well disguised, and second, its value bears little relationship to price.

Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet Jeremy P. Tarcher See book keywords and concepts

And, in the largest-ever antitrust lawsuit (except perhaps for that against Microsoft), fifteen of the biggest antitrust law firms in the U.S. took action last year against big agrochemical companies on behalf of U.S. and French farmers. They charge Monsanto—and What You Can't See How many of us get to spend face-to-face time with ordinary citizens on continents across the globe? Not many. And until this book, neither had I. So, we depend on other people's stories, other people's interpretations. Last year I remember reading Thomas Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree ravenously.

Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About Kevin Trudeau See book keywords and concepts

I called the antitrust department at our regional office in Cleveland, Ohio. I talked to a Mr. Edmond Round. We sent him all the information we had accumulated, which certainly provided cause to believe that the FDA's actions were a ploy to put us out of business because we were competing with vested-interest concerns. This was a direct violation of antitrust laws. Mr. Round's attitude was nonchalant, and I could tell immediately he was not going to do anything. I followed up with him in succeeding months and still could tell nothing was being done. I gave him leads but he never followed up.

Empower yourself in 3 minutes a day: An introduction to indy media, NewsTarget.com and the online information revolution Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

When the FDA is caught red-handed masterminding the latest scientific fraud in an effort to protect drug companies from determined regulatory action, we pull no punches in reporting the criminal antitrust behavior of this rogue agency that has now been thoroughly discredited even by its own scientists. (See the FDA scientist survey results.

Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies Greg Critser See book keywords and concepts

It was a decision fraught with antitrust perils, but Leschly believed he could hurdle such obstacles. He also invested $125 million in the emerging science of pharmacogenomics, the use of data from the Human Genome Project to target genes that caused illness. The two undertakings became near obsessions. Increasingly Leschly saw pills not as chemicals but as software — and he saw that analogy as a way to justify the prices he had to charge.

It was true that there was a "slight" antitrust issue in Merck owning the company: Medco's first allegiance, at least in negotiations over drug prices, was not, in theory and in law, to Merck. It was to the customer. Just prior to Merck's acquisition, for example, Medco was urging doctors to shift from Merck's Mevacor to Squibb's Pravachol, for price reasons. But Gilmartin did not see complexities and problems as much as he saw synergies and opportunities.

In fourteen months he filed thirty-four antitrust actions. "The consumer was always the bottom line for Lew," recalls Bob Lewis, who served on Engman's staff. "Ts this going to benefit the consumer?' That was always the question he asked at the end of the debate about anything." By the time he left the FTC in 1977, when a Democratic administration was about to take office, Engman had succeeded in making deregulation a mainstream Republican goal. At age forty-two, he was a GOP legend.

NewsTarget readers demand retractions from major media outlets over erroneous reporting of antioxidant study Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

The AMA has also been implicated in at least one shady deal where it received "licensing fees" from companies in exchange for permission to print the AMA logo on products even without bothering to conduct any sort of safety tests on those products. Click here to read these details about the AMA. The AMA's medical journal, JAMA, remains largely funded by drug company interests.

Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill Robert Whitaker See book keywords and concepts

Starting in 1959, Kefauver directed a two-year investigation by the Senate Subcommittee on antitrust and Monopoly into drug-industry practices, and his committee documented how the marketing machinery of pharmaceutical firms completely altered what physicians, and the general public, read about new medications. Advertisements in medical journals, the committee found, regularly exaggerated the benefits of new drugs and obscured their risks. The "scientific" articles provided a biased impression as well.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know James Trefil, Joseph F. Kett, and E. D. Hirsch See book keywords and concepts

See friend of the court. antitrust legislation Laws passed in the United States, especially between 1890 and 1915, to prevent large business corporations, called trusts, from combining into monopolies in order to restrict competition. The laws were instituted to encourage free enterprise. The enforcement of antitrust laws has been inconsistent. While the Bell Telephone system was declared a monopoly and forced to break up, huge corporations continue to merge. appeals, court of See court of appeals. apportionment The allocation of seats in a legislature or of taxes according to a plan.

Trusts are generally prohibited or restricted by antitrust legislation. (Compare monopoly.) trust busting Government activities aimed at breaking up monopolies and trusts. {See antitrust legislation.) tycoon Someone who has made a fortune in business, such as Cornelius Vanderbilt. unemployment compensation Short-term payments made to workers who have involuntarily lost their jobs. union See labor union. union shop A business or industry in which all new workers must join a labor union after a specified period of time. (See closed shop and right-to-work laws.

When Healing Becomes A Crime: The Amazing Story of the Hoxsey Cancer Clinics and the Return of Alternative Therapies Kenny Ausubel See book keywords and concepts

The conviction marked the third time in the century that the AMA was found guilty of antitrust violations for conspiracy and restraint of trade. The medical association was first convicted in 1937 under Dr. Fishbein for trying to destroy an autonomous doctors' group applying cost-cutting health delivery and insurance in Washington, D.C. It was again found guilty in 1982 by the Federal Trade Commission—a decision upheld by the Supreme Court, just as the earlier conviction was. This time the verdict confirmed the AMA's decades-long, systematic violation of antitrust statutes.

The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It Marcia Angell, M.D. See book keywords and concepts

In sum, the FTC found evidence that Hatch-Waxman is regularly exploited to prevent generic competition, and it has taken antitrust action against several brand-name and generic drug companies that colluded to keep generic drugs off the market. It also criticized the use of bogus "citizen petitions" to slow the approval of generic drugs. Finally, it suggested changes to Hatch-Waxman that would curb the abuse—including limiting drug companies to one thirty-month stay per drug and prohibiting agreements between brand-name and generic companies to delay the entrance of generic drugs to market.

Physician: Medicine and the Unsuspected Battle for Human Freedom Richard Leviton See book keywords and concepts

On that day, District Judge Susan Getzendanner found the American Medical Association (AMA) and fourteen associated parties guilty of waging a conspiracy against chiropractors to contain and eliminate them entirely in violation of the Sherman antitrust law. According to chiropractor Chester Wilk, D.C., who spearheaded the antitrust lawsuit, the fourteen litigators probably cost AMA at least $15 million. But even better, it exposed some of their propaganda methods for a later day.

When Healing Becomes A Crime: The Amazing Story of the Hoxsey Cancer Clinics and the Return of Alternative Therapies Kenny Ausubel See book keywords and concepts

AMA's war on chiropractic to the Federal Trade Commission for antitrust action.3 The case centered on restraint of trade, a violation of the Sherman antitrust Act. The four chiropractors who brought the suit decided against seeking money damages because they didn't want to divert attention from the true issues of monopolistic practices and impairments to patient care. Fully 18 percent of hospital admissions, a very sizable market share, are for orthopedic and musculoskeletal disorders, precisely the conditions that chiropractors treat.

Oxymorons: The Myth of a U.S. Health Care System J.D. Kleinke See book keywords and concepts

Goldfarb has become the cornerstone of physician antitrust law. Based on this precedent, physicians are free to charge as little or as much as they want, independent of each other, and attempts to do otherwise open them up to possible antitrust actions. But in actual practice, Goldfarb makes contract-based integration of fragmented physician practices tortuous and uncertain.

Of all the legal accidents that have complicated or even doomed well-meaning attempts by providers to fix the health care delivery system, none is more paradoxical than the antitrust rulings as they relate to physicians. In 1975, the Supreme Court ruled in Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar that the "learned professions" are engaged in "trade or commerce" and therefore are not exempt from antitrust actions when they attempt to band together for the purposes of collective negotiation of their own payment rates.

Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About Kevin Trudeau See book keywords and concepts

The Federal Trade Commission, the agency entrusted with protecting consumers against antitrust violations and monopolies such as this, does absolutely nothing. This is corruption at the highest levels of government. Many "newsletters" or books promote certain supplements. Most people do not know that the owners of these newsletters or books are the same people that actually sell the supplements. This is misleading and fraudulent, but very profitable for the big corporations.

Most people don't know that a lawsuit was filed regarding this obvious antitrust issue and the "big three" were found guilty! Corruption runs deep. In this case it was evidenced by the judge awarding the plaintiffs an insulting $1 in damages! That's right, just $1! The big three automakers obviously paid off the right people to make sure that there were no consequences to their illegal actions. Most recently, many of you have seen the movie The Insider or read the book about how for years the tobacco industry lied about their knowledge that the ingredients in cigarettes were highly addictive.

This is, and should be, classified as an antitrust violation and a violation of the First Amendment where these organizations are suppressing the free flow of information, ideas, opinions, and an individual's right to free speech. The government does absolutely nothing. • The most obvious example that the government, as well as the news organizations, are suppressing and censoring information is the Monsanto story that was squashed by Fox.

Further research revealed that, with the exception of a few antitrust cases involving huge companies, not one single administrative judge ever ruled against the FTC. My case is almost identical to most other FTC cases. The three most outrageous things to look at are: 1. The FTC stated that we were making unsubstantiated and false health claims about coral calcium. However, how could the FTC make that allegation when they never asked us to produce any substantiation that we may have had?

Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet Jeremy P. Tarcher See book keywords and concepts

ADM, the world's largest soybean processor and food-additive maker, pleaded guilty, paying one of the largest antitrust fines in American history—$100 million.39 Today, its almost $ 19 billion in annual sales suggest that this hand-slap didn't cause ADM to skip a beat. With the market clout that its size alone affords, ADM can profit without breaking the law. A year before the company's indictment, even ADM's chairman, Dwayne Andreas, acknowledged, "There is not one grain of anything in the world that is sold in the free market. Not one.

Reclaiming Our Health: Exploding the Medical Myth and Embracing the True Source of Healing John Robbins See book keywords and concepts

While all this was happening, Chester Wilk began to consider an antitrust suit against the AMA. An attorney named George McAndrews, who was the younger brother of Jerome McAndrews (vice president of the International Chiropractors Association), suggested a long string of prominent law firms that specialized in antitrust suits, but when Wilk and the McAndrews brothers approached them, they declined. "Take on the AMA? You've got to be kidding! You'll get squashed like a bug.

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