Fred hey - I’m not out of my mind:) I’m not talking about your particular practice (I don’t have that information). I am talking about “kickbacks” described in this current lawsuit by California’s insurance commisioner against AbbVie, the makers of Humira: apnews.com/5db96c08d32c4d…
1/1 As the article states 👉 “#Pharmaceutical giant AbbVie illegally plied doctors with cash, gifts and services to prescribe one of the world’s best-selling #drugs, Humira, despite its potentially deadly complications, a California official said in a lawsuit...”
2/2 “... The lawsuit by the state’s #insurance commissioner accuses the company of a far-reaching kickback scheme that led #doctors to write more prescriptions for the drug, tainting their relationship with #patients and driving up insurance costs.”
3/3 “...It’s likely patients were prescribed Humira because of the kickbacks provided by AbbVie and not because it was the best #medication to treat them, California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said on a conference call announcing the lawsuit...”
4/4 ““Ultimately, AbbVie gambled with the #health and safety of thousands of Californians’ lives, including #children, by making sure patients continued to take Humira at any cost, all to protect their profits not the health and well-being of patients,” Jones said...”
5/5 “...Jones said insurance companies paid more than $1.2 billion for Humira for thousands of California patients between 2013 and August 2018. That figure makes the lawsuit the largest health care fraud case in the state insurance department’s history”
6/6 “... AbbVie paid for doctors’ meals, drinks and travel to get them to write more prescriptions for Humira, according to the lawsuit. The kickback scheme also included #nurses whom the company sent to the homes of patients taking the drug, the lawsuit says...”
7/7 “... The nurses saved doctors money by handling paperwork and...were presented as extensions of the doctors’ offices, but in fact blocked patients from communicating their concerns about Humira to physicians and downplayed the drug’s risks...”
Personally: I’m not anti-science (I LOVE science), and I’m not anti-Medicine (I know many amazing MDs). It’s the opposite: because I value science/medicine so greatly, I get upset when conflicts of interest/lack of transparency prevent the disciplines from best moving forward.
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