fact sheet

When Drug Companies Fail To Tell The Truth, People Suffer

If there’s one industry that has an obligation to tell the truth, it’s the prescription drug industry. Yet when drug maker Merck discovered that its painkilling drug Vioxx dramatically increased the risk of heart attack and stroke, it suppressed the information. Within five years, an estimated 140,000 Americans suffered heart disease while using Vioxx and as many as 55,000 died.

Even more troubling is the fact that Washington officials show little inclination to force drug companies to disclose the truth before people suffer, even though the Vioxx scandal has made headlines for months.

That’s why PennPIRG is working in Harrisburg to pass legislation that would finally force the drug industry to tell the truth about their products—before the industry’s next scandal puts more lives at risk.

An Abuse Of Power, A Dereliction Of Duty

The pharmaceutical industry is a powerful player in Washington, D.C., contributing $17 million to federal candidates in 2004 alone, and chipping in another $7.3 for the parties’ conventions. The industry also spent $158 million on lobbying in 2004, employing more than two lobbyists for every member of Congress.

Perhaps that’s why the industry has been able to block importation of affordable prescriptions from Canada, defeat measures that would have restricted excessive extensions of drug patents, and even get lawmakers to prohibit the government’s Medicare program from negotiating fairer prices on medicines for seniors.

Perhaps that’s also why, despite congressional investigations exposing Merck’s failure to tell the whole truth, most experts predict that neither the Bush administration’s FDA nor Congress will change the rules governing disclosure of clinical trial results.

We Can Force The Drug Industry To Come Clean

There is a way to get around the drug industry’s power in Washington.

PennPIRG is working with decision-makers in Harrisburg to pass the Prescription Drug Right To Know act, which forces the drug industry to disclose the results of all of its clinical trials for drugs distributed in Pennsylvania. For example, these results might be posted online, so any doctor, patient, or watchdog group could access the information. An additional benefit of requiring online disclosure would be making the results accessible to Americans in other states as well.

The Prescription Drug Right To Know Act

The pharmaceutical industry should fully disclose the results of tests that call into question the safety of their products—but they don’t. The federal government should force the industry to change—but it won’t.

That’s why PennPIRG is promoting the Prescription Drug Right To Know act in Harrisburg. This legislation requires the pharmaceutical industry to certify in writing to the Commonwealth that the results of all clinical trials conducted on its drugs have been published in a publicly accessible forum. This certification would be needed in order for a drug to be distributed in Pennsylvania.

But the drug companies will oppose this legislation, and will lobby heavily in Harrisburg to defeat it. That’s why we need your help.