Former Pfizer representative charged with health care fraud

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Former Pfizer representative charged with health care fraud

Postby catbirdsteed » Fri Feb 19, 2010 3:47 pm

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, and if it will garner even a moderate fraction of the publicity that the Wakefield situation did.

Big Pharma researcher admits to faking dozens of research studies for Pfizer, Merck
Dr. Scott S. Reuben, a former member of Pfizer Inc.’s speakers’ bureau accused last year of perpetrating one of the biggest research frauds in medical history, was charged today in a federal court in Boston with falsifying medical research studies.

Reuben, formerly chief of acute pain at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass., faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz accused Reuben of accepting a $75,000 grant from Pfizer to research the effectiveness of pain medication Celebrex for a 2005 study in which no patients were actually enrolled. Prosecutors allege that Reuben made up the data, which he subsequently published in the medical journal "Anesthesia & Analgesia."

The data supported the conclusion that Celebrex was effective in helping post-operative patients who had received a particular type of knee surgery on the anterior cruciate ligament. "Anesthesia & Analgesia" later had to retract 10 papers written by Reuben, and medical experts at the time said at least 21 journal articles by the anesthesiologist appeared to be fabricated.

Reuben’s studies had been considered pioneering at the time they were published. His data had supported the use of two of Pfizer’s major products — Celebrex and Lyrica — in combination to treat certain types of post-operative pain.

Pfizer said it had supported five of Reuben’s research initiatives. Pfizer, which declined at the time to reveal how much it paid Reuben over the years to be part of its speakers’ bureau, said the company played no part in the fraud.

Last March, Reuben was dismissed from his position at Baystate Medical Center after an audit revealed he had been inventing data for as many as 13 years.
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Re: Former Pfizer representative charged with health care fraud

Postby catbirdsteed » Fri Feb 19, 2010 10:31 pm

I forgot the link, but the story is a year old, so I can't imagine it will cause any more of a flap than it might have already. If anyone has anything good to say about this guy... here is a chance.
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Re: Former Pfizer representative charged with health care fraud

Postby Maddy » Sat Feb 20, 2010 1:46 am

I never saw this. I'm glad you posted it!
Be kind - it costs nothing. ~ Maddy ~
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Re: Former Pfizer representative charged with health care fr

Postby catbirdsteed » Sat Jan 15, 2011 5:13 pm

It seems as though he is still a Dr.. Notice the recent Wikipedia update indicated below. At least he had a prison sentence. I wonder about those billions that Phizer and Merck made off of Celebrex and Vioxx. Well, some of that was paid out in lawsuits due to heart attacks and deaths involved with the long-term usage of the drugs.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6192603/ns/ ... arthritis/
"Merck & Co.’s arthritis drug Vioxx may have led to more than 27,000 heart attacks and sudden cardiac deaths before it was pulled from the market last week, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing an unreleased study by government regulators.

Last week, Merck abruptly recalled Vioxx, an arthritis treatment and one of the company’s top-selling drugs, after an internal study showed that patients taking the drug were more likely to suffer a cardiac event than those taking a placebo.

The Journal’s report, citing a study by the Food and Drug Administration, said that from Vioxx’s approval in 1999 through 2003, an estimated 27,785 heart attacks and sudden cardiac deaths would have been avoided if Celebrex, a competing drug made by Pfizer Inc., had been used instead of Vioxx."

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/c ... anada.html
Celebrex Implicated in 14 Canadian Deaths
November 4, 2004
A Toronto newspaper cites documents from Canadian health officials showing the painkiller Celebrex may have led to at least 14 deaths in Canada, and may have contributed to other heart and brain ailments.
The National Post says the documents include more than 100 adverse-reaction reports on Celebrex over the past five years, including five strokes and 19 cases of heart attack, cardiac arrest or heart failure.

Celebrex has been promoted as a safer alternative to Vioxx, the painkiller Merck & Co. pulled from the market in September after determining it led to higher rates of heart attacks and strokes.

Read more: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/c ... z1B8lyxeoU

from the Wikipedia article referred to at top of post:
"Doctors have been using (his) findings very widely," said Dr. Steven Shafer, editor of Anesthesia and Analgesia, a scientific journal that published ten articles identified as containing fraudulent data.[7] "His findings had a huge impact on the field."[5] Paul White, another editor at the journal, estimates that Reuben's studies led to the sale of billions of dollars worth of the potentially dangerous drugs known
as COX2 inhibitors, Pfizer's Celebrex and Merck's Vioxx, for applications whose therapeutic benefits are now in question.[1] All of Reuben's 21 fraudulent articles, as well as the article abstracts, are documented in Healthcare Ledger Magazine.

Reuben no longer holds an appointment as a professor at Tufts University's medical school.[6] His license status with the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine is "voluntary agreement not to practice."
On June 24, 2010, Reuben was sentenced in Federal Court to six months in jail (after pleading guilty to one count of health care fraud on February 21, 2010) to be followed by three years of supervised release. Further, a five-thousand dollar fine was imposed and he was ordered to provide restitution of more than three hundred sixty thousand dollars.[8]

This page was last modified on 8 January 2011 at 03:32.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Reuben
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