If anyone still has doubts on the partnership between the legal drug pushers and the media, this piece of news should convince even the most skeptical of the skeptics. As some of the best selling drugs are about to go off-patent in the coming years, the tidal wave of law-suits and the disaster swirling around some of the new drugs, such as Chantix, Big Pharma is becoming ever more aggressive in their efforts to appease their shareholders and investors.
The bullying pill peddlers are becoming desperate as their attempts to market lifestyle and preventive drugs through social engineering are hindered by ever growing public awareness and the medico/scientific milieus who are being increasingly held accountable for ethical misconducts and conflicts of interest.
Big Pharma is not used to not getting its way and it will do anything and everything to buy, cheat or corrupt anyone in the way. One tantrum in Canada involves its resolution to change Canadian advertising regulations limit them to either advertising the name of a product or say what it treats, not both. Concerned about their corporate image, and especially that they do not wish to be compared to the tobacco industry, Corporate executives are now fighting their battles using their puppets, the media industry.
Indeed, without too much noise or fanfare, CanWest Mediaworks, Canada’s largest newspaper publisher and owner of more than 30 television stations, has launched a court challenge against the Federal Government back in 2005. Unfairly placing them at a competitive disadvantage to US newspapers and magazines which are sold on Canadian newsstands, aka the level playing field, is the basis of their challenge that they are asking the Ontario Superior Court to hear.
As you may know, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously upheld advertising restrictions for the tobacco industry back in June 2007 read here. Indoctrinated judges admitted that it violated freedom of speech but ruled that public health takes precedent on constitutional rights. We are most eager to see how Big Pharma and its partners in crime, the CanWest media giant, will convince Canadian judges that potentially dangerous drugs can be advertized directly to the Canadian public free of any restrictions. Any bets?
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