AstraZeneca starting a new block buster ad campaign for that tarnished and dangerous drug Seroquel

AstraZeneca starting a new block buster ad campaign for that tarnished and dangerous drug Seroquel

"Bipolar depression doesn't just affect you--it can consume you" <- from Time magazine ad - www.imagebam.com

Then there is truth in advertising:

Bipolar depression doesn't just affect you, at AstraZeneca we intent for it to consume you.

If you think you were depressed before, just wait; at AstraZeneca we can help you pack on those extra pounds to improve that low self esteem; then give you some beautiful metabolic conditions (including diabetes and pancreatic disease) that are sure to hook you in as a life long consumer of least a few of our drugs.

It gets even better: can you spell "Sudden Heart Attack" "neuroleptic malignant syndrome", "tardive dyskinesia". If your taking Seroquel at this time, you probably can't....

If that doesn't work; we will have you increase the dose and our profits until your nothing more than a mindless babbling zombie stumbling through life with our FDA approved chemical blinders on.

So please America, continue to be stupid. You morons must continue to fall for are wonderful marketing ads, and take Seroquel or Seroquel-XR.

NAMI says it's good, so it must be good! We @ AZ pay them a lot of your money to get that dangerous message across.

Next round of advertisements will focus on this important buried study #15 fact:

"Take Seroquel, or you will Die"

satire and opinion by Stan

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from wikipedia.org

Quetiapine fumarate (pronounced /kwɨˈtaɪ.əpiːn/ kwi-TYE-ə-peen), marketed by AstraZeneca as Seroquel or SeroquelXR and by Orion Pharma as Ketipinor, is an atypical antipsychotic used in the management of schizophrenia, bipolar I mania, bipolar II depression, bipolar I depression, and used off-label for a variety of other purposes, including insomnia and anxiety disorders.

Annual sales are approx. $4.7bn worldwide, and $2.9bn in the US^[1]. The US patent, which was set to expire in 2011, received a pediatric exclusivity extension which pushed its expiration to March 26, 2012^[2]; however, in Canada it has already expired. Several pharmaceutical companies are now making generic versions of Quetiapine.

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From Natural News.com - psychiatrists_Seroquel

Big Pharma (AstraZeneca) paid $500,000 to Chicago psychiatrists who used children as guinea pigs

Friday, December 18, 2009 by: E. Huff, staff writer

(NaturalNews) A federal lawsuit has been filed against pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca for its role in paying Chicago psychiatrist Dr. Michael Reinstein nearly $500,000 over the course of a decade to conduct research and to promote its anti-psychotic drug, Seroquel. Reinstein is being accused of wrongfully preying on thousands of mentally-ill patients in order to rake in profits for AstraZeneca.

Reinstein has a long history of working with AstraZeneca, receiving regular payments for speeches he would make across the country promoting the drug. AstraZeneca was also paying a for-profit research company, Uptown Research Institute, who in turn was paying Reinstein consulting fees for his services.

Cited in the lawsuit was the fact that Reinstein would continually prescribe roughly double the amount of drugs other psychiatrists would prescribe for the same conditions. When patients would report their pain and suffering due to the tremendous side effects of such drugs and their abnormally high dosages, Reinstein would largely ignore their concerns.

Other accusations include illegitimately prescribing Seroquel for various other conditions, including losing weight, despite the fact that studies show the drug actually causes weight gain. Reinstein was found to have made numerous false claims about Seroquel in promotional material, claims that would result in the destruction of people's lives and health.

When all was said and done, more than 1,000 patients a year received Seroquel prescriptions from Reinstein at a cost of $7.6 million to taxpayers. It is unknown how many billions of dollars AstraZeneca has made from the widespread efforts of Reinstein in promoting the drug nationwide for all those years.

Despite all of his wrongdoings, Reinstein is not even a defendant in the case. AstraZeneca, the perpetrator which funded Reinstein, is the defendant in the lawsuit. While both Reinstein and AstraZeneca appear guilty of unethical and illegal behavior, AstraZeneca is rightfully bearing the brunt as it knowingly continued to fund Reinstein and rake in the profits of his misconduct.

The case brings up an important issue that plagues the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmaceutical money trail is never transparent, leading to questionable study results and improper marketing tactics. There is no accountability in the drug sector and this entire segment of the economy seems to be driven by deception and greed. Until people begin to demand restitution, the corruption will continue.
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From the blog - soulful sepulcher

AstraZeneca: Corporate criminals and the domination of YOU

The Corporate Crime Daily blog has a good review of the corruption that has defined AstraZeneca. The makers of Seroquel, the antipsychotic now being re-marketed as an anti depressant--and in litigation for injury caused by the drug, it's a shock this company can get away with this, who is listening? the FDA has placed you and your children at high risk for harm if you take Seroquel, in my opinion, and I'm entitled to one.
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Thanks to PharmaGossip for pointing out the article at Corporate Crime Daily and to Stan, for writing, "Pharmaceutical Corporate Criminals - The Untouchables?--Pharmaceutical Corporate Criminals - are rewarded with hundreds of billions in profits while our Justice System and Government enables them to continue their reign of terror like "criminal business as usual" , which contains another well-written commentary of how the dots connect and result in jeopardizing your health all in the name of corporate greed.

"Pharmaceutical Corporations have created a money addiction among doctors and influential key opinions leaders that actually create illness and keep people sick ( let us all be reminded that there is no MONEY in healthy people). They have taken a false and questionable scientific/medical modalities which were once considered rare, and effecting very small segments of the population; and have now main streamed them into validated pandemics among the general population of astronomical and historical proportions. "-Stan, "Pharmaceutical Corporate criminals, The Untouchables?"


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ASTRAZENECA: TALES OF A DEADLY DRUG PUSHER, Corporate Crime Daily blog
by cmargulis , December 3, 2009

In November, a federal judge recommended that as many as 6,000 lawsuits against drug giant AstraZeneca for the ill effects of the company’s anti-psychotic Seroquel should be returned to their home state courts for trial. Seroquel, the company’s second-best selling drug with annual sales of $4.45 billion, is notorious for the company’s cover-up of data from clinical trials showing potentially harmful effects from the drug, including diabetes, weight gain, stroke and death.
Just days before the judge’s order, an independent review commissioned by the British government found severe side effects, including stroke and death, suffered by people with dementia when taking Seroquel and other anti-psychotics. In response to the report, the UK government stated, “There is inevitably an element of risk with the prescribing of any medication. However, there is clear evidence that anti-psychotic drugs are currently being over prescribed, when alternative non-pharmacological approaches to dealing with anxiety and behavioural problems are available and should be used.” The report found that only about 20% of dementia patients prescribed antipsychotics receive any benefit from the risky drugs.
A recent Chicago Tribune report found that Illinois nursing homes were cited for thousands of cases in which elderly residents who exhibited no symptoms of psychosis were improperly dosed with Seroquel and other antipsychotics. AstraZeneca paid one Chicago-area psychiatrist nearly $500,000 over a decade for establishing a customer base of thousands of indigent, mentally ill residents in Chicago-area nursing homes.

The litigation against AstraZeneca has exposed a litany of company misdeeds around Seroquel:
AstraZeneca covered-up knowledge that use of Seroquel could lead to severe weight gain and diabetes. A New York Times report noted the company’s fraudulent interpretation of studies to minimize the risk began as early as 1997, and noted a 1999 email from a company executive who asked, “…how do we face the outside world when they begin to criticize us for suppressing data.” One expert has stated that the risk of diabetes for people on Seroquel is 70 percent greater than for the general population.

AstraZeneca engaged in illegal off-label promotions of Seroquel, and company documents suggest that questionable marketing was approved at the highest levels. In one off-label scheme, sales staff were told to use Winnie-the-Pooh characters (Tigger as bipolar, Eeyore as depressed) in order to market the psychiatric drug for pediatric patients. As the New York Times noted, “As a result of aggressive marketing, Seroquel has been increasingly used for children and elderly people for indications not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.” Also, a company employee appears to have altered the wikipedia entry for Seroquel, deleting a National Institute of Health warning that teens taking the drug could be prone to suicide. In late October, the company paid $520 million to settle two lawsuits and two federal investigations of illegal promotions of Seroquel.

AstraZeneca covered-up a company study showing that Seroquel performed worse than several other drugs; two months after the company learned of the study findings, a doctor paid by the company presented the data at a medical conference as showing Seroquel to be “more effective” than the other drugs.

The company’s medical director for Seroquel admitted to lawyers in 2007 that he had numerous sexual relationships with women involved in clinical research on the drug, and traded sex for trade secrets.
The recent problems are only the latest in a string of AstraZeneca misdeeds. AstraZeneca was one of three drug makers found guilty in 2008 of defrauding Medicare by overcharging for drugs and encouraging doctors to prescribe their products over competitors through pricing that rewarded the physicians for prescribing certain drugs. Former NewEngland Journal of Medicine editor Marcia Angell has charged that the company’s clinical trials of its top-selling drug Nexium were rigged to show greater efficacy than a cheaper competing product. In 1996, a Business Week cover story exposed “dozens of cases” of women who accused then-CEO of Astra USA Lars Bildman and other top executives with sexual harassment. One male sales manager told the magazine, “If ever there was a company where sexual harassment was rampant, this is it.”
In 2008, AstraZeneca CEO David Brennan took home over $2.5 million."--Corporate Crime Daily

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How about reading a few of these interesting articles (including an eye opening comment section) at Furious Seasons Blog

• Seroquel For Bipolar Depression TV Ads Running

• Suspicious Antipsychotics For Depression Study Comes Into Question

• Study: Medicaid Kids Get Antipsychotics At Four Times The Rate Of Privately-Insured Kids

• Seroquel Gets FDA Approval For Use In 10-Year-Olds

• FDA Approves Seroquel As Add-On Treatment For Depression

• AstraZeneca Whines About Chicago Tribune's Seroquel Coverage

• Psychiatrist Got $490,000 Pimping For Seroquel, Engaged In Wide Off-Label Use

• AstraZeneca To Pay Feds $520 Million To Settle Seroquel Claims

• JAMA Study Slaughters Antipsychotics For Kids, Teens Paradigm

• JAMA Study Finds Explosive Weight Gain In Kids On Antipsychotics

• NAMI Board Member Was Paid Consultant To AstraZeneca On Seroquel

• Court Rules AstraZeneca Overcharged KY Medicaid Program

• Seroquel Promoted As Weight Neutral When Company Knew It Produced Large Weight Gain

• AstraZeneca Denied Seroquel Diabetes Link After Warning Of It In Japan

• Placebo Outperforms Seroquel In Teen Bipolar Depression Study

• The Boston Globe Examines Seroquel's Street Drug Status

• Seroquel, Geodon Tied To Death Of 3-Year-Old "Bipolar Child" In Kansas

• Holland Refuses To Approve Seroquel For Depression

• Seroquel Documents: Criminals Led Seroquel Clinical Trials

• Seroquel Documents: AZ Hid Significant Seroquel Weight Gain From Doctors, Patients

• Seroquel Documents: AstraZeneca Exec Admits "Fuck-Ups" In Seroquel Study, Published Article
• Seroquel Documents: AZ Planned Off-Label Seroquel Sales In 2000

• Seroquel Documents: Allegations AZ Planned Off-Label Marketing To Kids, Elderly, Tried Obscuring Weight Gain, Hyperglycemia

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There is actually so much more damning evidence to be found at a variety of news sources and sites around the internet; that this post barely scratches the surface. I at least hope to have given you a small head start. Next time, before you pop that pill; ask some important probing questions and do your research, your life may very well depend on it.