Feb
20
When you think of big drug companies, what image comes to mind? Is it an image of a company that is out to save the world by curing all of the horrible diseases? I don’t think that is the picture that most of us would paint. I think that most of us probably see these companies as examples of corporate greed. These companies make billions and billions of dollars off of their products. And usually if you can not afford their medications then you simply do not have access to the cure.
Well one of these drug companies is a little different in my opinion. Back in the late 1990s a company called Merck gained FDA approval for a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug called Vioxx. This drug was prescribed to millions of arthritis patients worldwide with wonderful results. Unfortunately as the years passed it was realized that this drug may be contributing to heart attacks and strokes.
Did Merck wait for the FDA to step in and do something? No they didn’t! Despite the fact that taking this drug off of the market voluntarily would cost them millions of dollars in profits, they chose to do the right thing. Vioxx was taken off of pharmacy shelves in late 2004 because the executives at the pharmaceutical company that sold it decided to do the right thing.
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6 Responses to “When A Big Drug Company Does The Right Thing”
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I do not think they look at themselves as people who are saving lives. They are making so much money off of what they do and that is all they care about is the money. The guy you are speaking of does not sound like one of those people though. He did the right thing and probably saved many lives by doing so.
The good news stories like this hardly see the light of day. Thanks for bringing this underreported aspect of business into the open and challenging the status quo.
What an awesome story, I am so glad that you shared it with us because personally I can not get enough of those few positive stories that actually make it into the news these days. Thank you!
The real test of Merck’s good intentions is how the treat all the people whose lives were damaged by a defective product. I don’t trust big coporations despite the fact that they sometimes do the right thing.
I have a feeling that they “did the right thing” to try and avoid legal issues connected with the drug. Sometimes a company can save more money avoiding legal issues than they could have made with sales of a particular product.
As a diabetic, I’m the first person to step up and say that pharmaceutical companies overcharge, but I also know several pharmaceutical researchers, and I know that their hearts are in the right place–to help sick people get better and feel better.