Amid Bad Publicity, Drug Company Uses Progressive Union to Peddle Its Products

A couple of weeks ago Dr. Alicia Fernandez, an associate professor of clinical medicine at UC San Francisco, received a very unusual letter from the International Association of EMTS and Paramedics, an affiliate of the National Association of Government Employees (IAEP/SEIU).

The letter began by noting that Fernandez is part of the union's approved physician network, and then launched into what can only be described as a shameless sales pitch for Lipitor, Pfizer's blockbuster cholesterol-lowering drug.

First, the alarming statistics presented in the letter:

• 1 in 3 adults has some form of CVD (cardiovascular disease)
• About every 26 seconds, an American will suffer a coronary event
• Stroke is a leading cause of serious, long-term disability in the United States
• Every 45 seconds, someone will suffer a stroke.

Then, the endorsement: "Lipitor is available to our members through their prescription plan. IAEP leadership stands behind LIPITOR as the lipid-lowering agent of choice when it is prescribed by a physician. [my emphasis] This confidence in LIPITOR is based on its proven efficacy and is supported by its vast clinical experience of more than 15 years ..."

The letter went on, at length, to praise Lipitor's benefits and to downplay the drug's risks. In clinical trials, the letter states, "The most common adverse events were constipation, flatulence, dyspepsia and abdominal pain." But while other risks may not be as "common," they are certainly worth mentioning. They include memory loss, which can look like Alzheimer's, and severe muscle pain.

A few days ago, Fernandez received a second, identical letter. Never before in her professional experience had she received a drug ad from a union.

"I've never seen anything like this. I've never seen labor endorse a drug product," she told me. "This is incredible." Unfortunately, Fernandez adds, this is not the first time that she has seen a drug company use a progressive organization to promote its product.

In this case, the Lipitor letter is signed by "Matthew Levy," the director of IAEP. "But this is clearly a joint production between the drug company and the union," Fernandez notes. "Much of the letter is written in medical language -- looks like it is written by Pfizer folks. And at the bottom of the second page of the letter there is a Pfizer copyright: '2007 Pfizer Inc. All rights reserved. Filed in USA/December 2007.' Yet it is written on the IAEP/SEIU letterhead."

Why would Pfizer need the union's help in peddling its drug? Lipitor, after all, is the best-selling drug in the world, with sales of almost $13 billion in 2006.

But recently, Lipitor has been attracting some decidedly negative publicity.

In January Business Week published a cover story that asked, "Do Cholesterol Drugs Do Any Good?" which blew the lid off the theory that "statins" -- drugs like Lipitor, Crestor, Mevacor, Zocor and Pravachol -- can cut the odds that you will die of a heart attack by slowing the production of cholesterol in your body and increasing the liver's ability to remove LDL, or "bad cholesterol," from your blood.

As I wrote at the time, the medical evidence shows that, while these drugs can help some people, they have been widely overprescribed. "Medical research suggests that only about 40 percent to 50 percent of the 18 million Americans taking statins are likely to benefit," says Dr. John Abramson, a clinical instructor at Harvard and author of Overdosed America. "The other 8 or 9 million are exposed to the risks that come with taking statins -- which can include severe muscle pain, memory loss, sexual dysfunction -- and one study shows increased risk of cancer in the elderly -- but there are no studies to show that the drugs will protect these patients against fatal heart attacks."