http://www.statesman.com/search/con
tent/news/stories/local/12/16/16drugs.html
State's mental facilities duped into using drug, Abbott
alleges
Lawsuit claims state official pushed drug, was rewarded with
money.
By Jason Embry, W. Gardner Selby
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, December 16, 2006
A major corporation and several subsidiaries misrepresented
the safety and
effectiveness of an anti-psychotic drug and unduly
influenced at least one
state official to make it a standard treatment in public
mental health
programs, according to a lawsuit the state has joined.
Attorney General Greg Abbott joined a lawsuit filed in
Travis County
district court by Allen Jones, a former investigator for the
state of
Pennsylvania, against Johnson & Johnson Inc. and five
related companies.
Jones says in the lawsuit that he learned of payments to at
least one Texas
mental health official in interviews he conducted as an
investigator. No
official is named in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit, which came to light Friday, seeks to recover
for the state
untallied alleged overcharges to the state's Medicaid
program, which pays
for health care for low-income people.
Jones' lawsuit alleges that the companies launched a drug
named Risperdal in
1994 to treat schizophrenia. About the same time, the state
was developing a
protocol, or treatment guidelines, for which drugs should be
used in public
mental health programs. The defendants "provided
substantial financial
contributions to and improperly influenced the
development" of the
protocols, the lawsuit said, and Risperdal took precedence
in the protocols
over cheaper, equally effective medicines.
The drug later received recommendations as the medicine of
choice in the
state's mental health protocol for treating children and
adolescents, even
though it lacked a Food and Drug Administration indication
for those age
groups, the lawsuit says. It says side effects and health
risks include
increased chance of stroke, renal failure and hyperglycemia.
The companies pushed Risperdal in other states through paid
consultants on
expert panels, peer-to-peer marketing strategies and
"administrative
decisions made by a select few public officials," the
lawsuit says. The
companies sent an unnamed Texas official around the country
as a spokesman
for the drug, and they hired third-party contractors to
conceal their
control and funding of medical education programs, speakers'
bureaus and
clinical research that promoted the benefits and safety of
Risperdal, the
lawsuit says.
The lawsuit says at least 17 states, including Texas, have
implemented the
protocol or are doing so.
"We allege it's a scheme whereby they passed off as
medical science phony
representations and misleading facts about the efficacy and
appropriateness
of these drugs," said Thomas Melsheimer, a lawyer for
Jones.
Abbott's office declined to comment on the lawsuit, as did
spokesmen for
Johnson & Johnson and the state's Health and Human
Services Commission,
which oversees the Medicaid program. A commission spokesman
did say Texas
paid 308,000 claims totaling $73.5 million for Risperdal in
2005.
Melsheimer described Jones as a "classic
whistle-blower" who filed the
lawsuit in 2004 on behalf of Texas to recover the companies'
overcharges.
Because of his whistle-blower status, the lawsuit was sealed
from public
view until Abbott joined it.
jembry statesman.com; 445-3654
wgselbystatesman.com; 445-3644
Regards,
Catherine
Do not follow where the path may lead;
go instead where there is no path and
leave a trail.
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