Off-label use of Neurontin & Trileptal for bipolar: you were duped and scammed sucker!

TWO major drug companies are in the NEWS today-Pfizer is one of them for marketing off-label promotions of drugs for bipolar disorder treatment. Novartis is the other. -VIA Pharmagossip

Trileptal is an antiepileptic drug people have been prescribed for use of the treatment of bipolar disorder, and Neurontin is an antiepileptic drug used in off-label for pain as well as bipolar disorder treatment. The drugs are often touted by psychiatrists as ones that quell mania, or that they simply just 'help' without knowing why they work.

The most recent (October 2010) off-label use drug rx'd to my daughter by an inpatient quack was Trileptal, though I warned she is drug sensitive, trialed them all and didn't need drugs for a condition they called 'manic' when she started to TALK again! the drug was removed immediately by another doctor once out of that place and she has not been on it since and definitely did not need it! Talking again is not mania, stop symptomizing everything and drugging it!

To all of the quacks and doctors who promote these drugs based on pharmaceutical hearsay and no facts: %@# YOU. Now how do you justify the use to your patients?

PZIZER and NOVARTIS duped, suckered and rolled you doc!

"Monday, January 31, 2011

Novartis ordered to pay $422.5 million fine for off-label marketing Philadelphia Inquirer

Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. was officially ordered today to pay $422.5 million in civil and criminal fines for promoting an antiepileptic drug for non-approved uses, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia announced.

The company had pleaded guilty Nov. 2 to marketing Trileptal, which had federal approval as an epilepsy drug, for additional uses that included bipolar disorder and neuropathic pain, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration had not approved those latter uses."

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Monday, January 31, 2011

"Pfizer ordered to pay $142.1M for Neurontin ads violating U.S. racketeering laws - Crain's New York Business

Pfizer Inc., the world’s largest drugmaker, was ordered to pay a total of $142.1 million in damages for violating U.S. racketeering laws in the marketing of its epilepsy drug Neurontin.

U.S. District Judge Patti Saris in Boston on Thursday upheld a jury’s finding that Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc. and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals deserved the award over the companies’ claims that Pfizer illegally promoted Neurontin for unapproved uses. Ms. Saris tripled the jury’s award of $47.3 million under a provision of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act of 1970."

"Kaiser officials alleged they were duped into believing that migraines and bipolar disorder could be treated effectively with Neurontin, approved in 1993 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for epilepsy."