Sunday, April 7, 2013

Following the money in the Pharmaceutical Services Division



The Vancouver Sun recently ran an article about a Pharmaceutical scam called Six fired, two lawsuits, one dead - but still no answers. The Tyee has recently reported there’s now three lawsuits. It all stems from the abrupt termination of a research group that has benefited the large drug companies just like the termination of the RCMP squad investigating money laundering in BC casinos has benefited organized crime.

Rod MacIsaac was days away from completing his PHD and was terminated from the research project. Shortly thereafter he was found dead. The Common Ground wrote about it as well and asked Rod’s sister what she though were possible theories. She said follow the money.

“With BC’s PharmaCare program spending more than $1.2 billion of our money on drugs every year, there is a lot of cash to follow. Many people wonder if the drug safety evaluations done by employees like Roderick and other evaluators were finding things the pharmaceutical manufacturers didn’t like. Would that be enough to lead to an anaphylactic reaction in the bureaucracy and a carpet-bombing of the Ministry of Health?”

It all started on March 28, 2012, when a complaint was filed with the BC’s Auditor General about the way contracts were being awarded and how research was being conducted within the Pharmaceutical Services Division (PSD). PSD oversees annual spending of $1.2 billion on pharmaceuticals, the fastest growing of all areas of health spending. This growth is fueled by unrelenting pressure from pharmaceutical companies that strive to ensure their products are generously covered by the public purse.

Alan Cassals is co-author, with Australian journalist Ray Moynihan of the book, Selling Sickness, about the role of the pharmaceutical industry in helping to create and market illness. We know that the methadone program is a huge money maker and any rehab centre that doesn’t teach it doesn’t get government referrals. Keeping people on the program forever and refusing to ever decrease the dosages is a huge scam all in itself. However, me thinks this one goes far beyond that.

I would however, like to find out how much of that $1.2 billion a year is spent on methadone and how much the pharmacists make for dispensing it and the doctors make for prescribing it. In fact a complete break down of how that $1.2 billion a year is spent is really crucial to our not so democratic system. How contracts are awarded and what not. You get the picture.

5 comments:

  1. AK: "Keeping people on the (methadone) program forever and refusing to ever decrease the dosages is a huge scam all in itself."

    In the DTES, you'll see a crowd in the back lane, behind the Pharmacy, on Fridays.

    Why? The Pharmacy hands out $10 to each one, who drinks daily. You can see the Pharmacy assistant handing out the bills.

    Behind this crowd are...guess who...the crack dealers, into whose hands every ten-dollar bill gets transferred to, instantly.

    The Pharmacy knows that too.

    Sadly, that's one tiny instance of the vast corruption of the for-profit methadone drug-pusher scene. The Pharmacies are pushers.

    Twice now my Doctor has refused to lower my dosage. If it happens one more time, I'm reporting the whole effin' Clinic to the authorities.

    I get the feeling, that they hate I'm taking so little methadone now. They see my departure upcoming, and they're trying to stop me, I'm sure of it!

    What hard-drug-pusher wants to see their clients walk out the door on them? Not one of them want that.

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  2. This is a huge problem that needs to be addressed. Why are they handing out $10 bills? As a rebate from the money they make from the government for their business? Going on the methadone program to get money to buy crack. I'd say that's a misuse of the program.

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  3. AK: "Why are they handing out $10 bills?"

    To bribe their incredibly-valuable daily-drinking clients, is why. If they don't bribe them, the next Pharmacy will, you see.

    AND; they changed the rules; so that all clients, instead of getting our usual monthly prescriptions, now MUST go to a Clinic for a new prescription every TWO weeks!

    That means twice as many scripts written by the clinic Doctor, twice as many scripts to fill at the Pharmacies!

    The government just doubled the river of cash, into the methadone Clinics, Pharmacies, and Doctors.

    They just served up a mountain of hard-drug dealing cash; and served it on solid-gold tableware...

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  4. Robert Dziekanski's death at hands of Mounties was a homicide, Coroner rules more than five years later.

    METRO VANCOUVER -- More than five years after the Tasering death of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver airport, the B.C. Coroner's Service has ruled the incident a homicide."

    "Homicide is a death due to an injury intentionally inflicted by the action of another person," wrote Patrick Cullinane in his final report released Monday. It is a neutral term that does not imply fault or blame."

    "Cullinane concluded the Polish immigrant, who spoke no English, died of cardiac distress that occurred after being restrained and repeatedly Tasered by RCMP officers. He said an autopsy showed no natural diseases or injuries that would have led to Dziekanski's sudden death."



    "Cullinane noted his findings are consistent with those of the Braidwood Inquiry into Dziekanski's death at Vancouver airport on Oct. 14, 2007."

    http://tinyurl.com/cj6rlzg (VSun)

    " It (homicide) is a neutral term that does not imply fault or blame."

    WTF...? Killing someone is an act without blame...? Then, if I shoot someone today, I walk b/c there is no "fault" on my part? Mind-boggling!

    And, what will happen to the Police who *homicided" a living person?

    Nothing of course.

    There's very obviously one set of rules for citizens (1st degree homicide = 25 years, no ?); and another blame-less set for RCMP everywhere in BC.

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  5. Idea: Replace the methadone Doctors & the *Clinics*...with ATM-style prescription machines.



    You put in your *smart* card, and out pops the prescription, everything's computerized.

    There is NO therapeutic medicine practiced at these *Clinics*, anyway, that's true.

    See the Doctor only when necessary, for a serious medical reason.

    It's just one part of the amazingly corrupt system, but a journey of one thousand miles, begins with a single step, no...?

    We must begin.

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