Apakah??

I was doing research for my pharmacodebate assignment and what I found was deadly SHOCKING!! I might exaggerate things a little but I just want to express my feelings right now. Do any of you know of the name Merck?? Well they are actually among the biggest pharmaceutical company in the world with many products currently on the market. In 1999 they release a drug name Vioxx on the market which was used to treat osteoarthritis. The drug was good as it reduce injury in the gut but was later on withdrawn from the market due to cardiovascular effect.

The topic for my assignment was ‘withdrawal of the coxib drugs demonstrates that the hurdles for new drug registration are too low’ and I’m on the against team. When I was looking for info on why they withdrawn the drugs, I found that it was because the patients who took the drugs have increase risk of cardiovascular effect. But the effect was not that significant if you use the drugs for less than 18 months. If you use the drug longer than that then the problems will arise.

Later on I found out that the people from Merck know that the drug was going to have a cardiovascular effect and they didn’t disclose it. They know it all along; they even manipulate the data from the clinical trials to hide the truth from the public and authorities. How bad is that? You are talking about people’s life here and they only care about the money?? The worst thing was that they even influence the doctors not to report the hazardous effect of the drug and intimidate scientists who go against them. Jahat giler..

Vioxx Pills

There was this one case in the US where a mother sued Merck for her daughter’s death. Her daughter died of heart attack after 2.5 years of using this drug. When she brought the case to court, the doctor that treat her daughter claimed that he never treated the patients before. This was one of the examples on how Merck influence the doctors.

Before this I always look up to the big pharmas and wish that one day I will work for them. If this is how they do their work, I don’t even mind if I don’t get to work for them in my lifetime. I know I’m a bit emotional but I can’t help it. I know that reality always hurt, but I wish there was something that I can do to avoid things like this from happening again.

Back to work. Till then~