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Sixteen States, DOJ Join Whistle-Blower Lawsuits Alleging Wyeth Defrauded Medicaid Programs
The U.S. Department of Justice and 16 states have joined two whistle-blower lawsuits filed in federal District Court in Massachusetts alleging that Wyeth defrauded the government by not offering the same discounts on two medications to Medicaid that it offered to hospitals, the Wall Street Journal reports. The lawsuits were initiated following a grand-jury investigation by the U.S. Attorney"s Office in Massachusetts (Johnson, Wall Street Journal, 5/19). The other states included in the lawsuits are California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, New York, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia (Barrett, AP/Austin American-Statesman, 5/18).According to the lawsuits, Wyeth from 2000 to 2006 sold hospitals a bundled package called the Protonix Performance Agreement, which included its acid-reflux drugs Protonix Oral and Protonix IV. The suits allege that Wyeth gave hospitals up to a 94% discount for the oral version under the deal, with the understanding that when patients were released from hospitals they would be switched from the intravenous version of the drug to the oral version. According to the complaint, Wyeth hoped to gain an edge in a competitive market for acid-reflux pills by taking advantage of its standing as the only company offering an IV acid-reflux drug. The Journal reports that Wyeth charged hospitals $20 per vial for the IV version of Protonix and $3 for the oral version.Medicaid rules stipulate that the program is entitled to the lowest price on prescription drugs, and drugmakers are required to pay states rebates if they offer discounts to any other entities. The lawsuits state that Wyeth avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars to state Medicaid programs because it did not offer the programs the same discounts or provide rebates (Wall Street Journal, 5/19).The lawsuits are seeking financial penalties against Wyeth of up to three times the amount lost by Medicaid. Assistant Attorney General Tony West said, "By offering massive discounts to hospitals, but then hiding that information from the Medicaid program, we believe Wyeth caused Medicaid programs throughout the country to pay much more for these drugs than they should have." Wyeth spokesperson Doug Petkus said that Wyeth "believes that its pricing calculations were correct and intends to defend itself vigorously in these actions" (AP/Austin American-Statesman, 5/18).
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Livestrong(R) Global Cancer Campaign Announces Groundbreaking New European Commitments To Cancer Control
Today the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF) announced outstanding new commitments to cancer control from European nations including Belgium, England, Germany, Ireland and Italy as part of the LIVESTRONG Global Cancer Campaign, an initiative to address the global cancer burden. The European commitments feature ambitious goals ranging from creating a national cancer plan to addressing disparities in treatment for cancer survivors to establishing an academy devoted entirely to cancer to improvements for breast health services, among others.
News of the day
Chicago Study Looks At HIV Among Gay Men, Finds Many Unaware Of Status
More than 17 percent of gay men in Chicago have HIV, and 39 percent went untested in the last 12 months because of fear of the results, according to a study of nearly 600 gay men in the city by the Chicago Department of Health, the Chi-Town Daily News reports. The study also found that gay black men had an infection rate that was more than twice the rates of gay white and Hispanic men. Jim Pickett, director of advocacy for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, said the findings indicate that, "We need to incorporate HIV into a broader or more holistic framework (covering) gay men"s health needs from top to toe." The city will formally release the study"s results next week (Parker, Chi-Town Daily News, 6/2).
Mental Health

Nicotine Dependence Remains Prevalent Despite Recent Declines In Cigarette Use

Despite recent declines in cigarette use in the U.S., nicotine dependence has remained steady among adults and has actually increased among some groups. The finding by researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health suggests that public health initiatives have been far more successful in preventing Americans from taking up smoking than in persuading hard-core smokers to stop. The study is available online in the American Journal of Public Health and will be published in the August 2009 issue. Previous studies have found that since the 1964 U.S. Surgeon General report, the number of people who smoke cigarettes has declined. The Mailman School of Public Health study takes this research a step further by distinguishing occasional smokers from heavy smokers. "Regular, heavy cigarette use frequently characterizes nicotine dependence and is the pattern of use thought to be the most detrimental to health and longevity, but it has not been addressed in previous estimates of the decline in smoking prevalence," says Renee Goodwin, PhD, associate professor of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health and principal investigator of the study. "Rather, earlier research mainly addressed tobacco use or cigarette smoking per se rather than examining the frequency and duration of cigarette use in detail." The new study finds not only that the number of nicotine-addicted Americans has held steady over the past several decades, but also that the proportion of cigarette smokers who are addicted to nicotine nowadays is greater than in previous generations. Dr. Goodwin cites a possible explanation for this latter finding. She suggests that fewer people are taking up smoking, perhaps because of anti-cigarette campaigns, leaving the ranks of current smokers filled with the nicotine dependent. Another factor that has changed dramatically in the epidemiology of tobacco consumption and dependence over the past several decades is gender. Smoking has been far more common among men than among women for most of the past forty years, though recent evidence suggests that the gender gap has narrowed, and the current study finds increases in smoking among women in several recent generations. It is also thought that socioeconomic status is a factor in cigarette use. The current study finds that younger women living in poverty had the highest rates of nicotine dependence, compared with older generations, and those not living in poverty. This suggests that despite increases in taxes and smoking costs, those most vulnerable are still heavily affected. "Passage of this month"s law governing the regulation of tobacco products and its focus on preventing smoking initiation among children is important and timely as our findings suggest that the number of people who still smoke is considerable," observes Dr. Goodwin. "Hopefully this legislation will help reduce the number addicted to nicotine in future generations since never smoking is the only sure way to prevent the development of nicotine dependence." "Given the mounting evidence that nicotine dependence plays a crucial role in smoking patterns, there is no question that future studies on curbing cigarette use need to take nicotine dependence into account," says Dr. Goodwin. Data for the study "Changes in Cigarette Use and Nicotine Dependence in the United States: Evidence from the 2001-2002 Wave of the National Epidemiologic Survey of Alcoholism and Related Conditions" is from the 2001 National Epidemiological Survey of Alcoholism and Related Conditions, a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults 18 years and older. The study was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Stephanie Berger Columbia University"s Mailman School of Public Health


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