Consumer Reports, long a critic of drug advertising, recently introduced a new feature on its website: AdWatch. In the first episode, an Associate Editor picks apart the claims made in an ad for GlaxoSmithKline's (NYSE:GSK) drug, Requip. The ad pitches

We've been harping on Nexium for several years now. AstraZeneca's (NYSE:AZN) supposed "healing purple pill" is nothing more than a dressed-up version of its previous blockbuster gastric reflux drug, Prilosec. We gave Nexium a Bitter Pill Award in 2005,

In recent weeks, two communications to-dos at federal agencies illustrate the good, the bad, and the ugly when government tries to talk to its people about less-than-ideal stuff. The good: The formation of an FDA risk communications panel by recommendatio

Judge Patti Saris of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts today issued an order in the massive national class action lawsuit, In re Pharmaceutical Industry Average Wholesale Price Litigation. In it, she found Astra Zeneca (NYSE:AZN) an

Very funny parody song/ad for a new drug called "Paracetamoxyfrusebendroneomycin." The lyrics make various references to the UK's National Health Service, the jokes about it which are mostly lost on us here in the U.S. However, the rest is more or less u

A recent and welcome addition to the pharmaceutical blogosphere is PostScript, the blog of The Prescription Project (a sister project of Community Catalyst, which is PAL's parent organization). PostScript has been featuring a series of fascinating interv

Back in 2001, TAP Pharmaceuticals, a joint venture of Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) and Takeda Pharmaceuticals, pleaded guilty to illegal marketing and pricing of its prostate cancer drug Lupron, and agreed to a $875 million settlement. This was the larg

Howard Brody is a professor of family medicine and director of the Institute for the Medical Humanities at University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas.  Prior to joining the faculty at UTMB, Dr. Brody was a professor of medicine at Michigan St

Prescription drug problems have hit the presidential radar screen. With an announcement of a plan to rein in the pharmaceutical industry this weekend at a campaign stop in Laconia, NH, John Edwards became the first major 2008 presidential candidate to tak