AP Associated Press IMPACT:
Drug makers’ push boosts ‘murky’ ailment
Collated by Jeanne Hambleton FMS Global News Desk ©2009
A ‘Murky Business’ – Yes it is REAL
AP Associated Press IMPACT:
Drug makers’ push boosts ‘murky’ ailment
Collated by Jeanne Hambleton FMS Global News Desk ©2009
Business Writer Matthew Perrone for AP: Associated Press has “set the cat among the pigeons” with his reference to fibromyalgia and ‘murky ailments’. Posted in Washington on February 8 2009, this article has the promise of the same reaction given to the infamous IS DISEASE REAL article on fibromyalgia that appeared in the New York Times.
The above story by NY Times reporter Alex Berenson published January 14, 2008 can be read at <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/health/14pain.htmlem&ex=1200459600&en=bac45d5aff5a17d7&ei=5087>
The members of the fibromyalgia community who are somewhat sensitive about questions suggesting FMS is an imaginary illness, has risen to the bait and letters are flocking in from around the USA where the article was published and in the UK, where it has been given coverage by FMS Global News.
Matthew Perrone, a business writer, suggests huge sums of money were provided by two drug companies last year in an endeavor to raise awareness of a “murky illness” as well as boost the sales of their medication recently approved by the Food & Drugs Association (FDA.). The writer claims the drug companies have been “drowning out unresolved questions” …. “whether it is a real disease at all”.
Oooophs. That went down like a lead balloon.
Matthew Perrone discovered that the two drug companies, Pfizer and Eli Lilly, have in the first nine months of 2008 donated upward of $6 million towards educational events and to supporting non-profit making medical conferences. He claims this sum is greater than funds given to Alzheimer’s and diabetes. Top priority for funding by Pfizer was for cancer, AIDS and the fibromyalgia. Similarly Eli Lilly favoured cancer, depression and fibromyalgia.
While reminding readers that the cause for fibromyalgia still not known, with no specific test to confirm diagnosis, patients often showed overlapping symptoms with other neurological diseases. He claimed the specialists are in no doubt about the pain these patients suffer but they cannot agree how it should be treated and what illness it actually is.
It is believed by many patients and doctors, says Matthew Perrone, that the actions of the drug manufacturers are helping to solved the mysteries of fibromyalgia within the medical profession. He does acknowledge that patients with fibromyalgia say doctors often disbelieved them claiming the pains are imaginary or “all in your head.”
The article adds “critics say the companies are hyping fibromyalgia along with their treatments, and that the grant making is a textbook example of how drug makers unduly influence doctors and patients.”
Dr Frederick Wolfe, a member of the panel who helped to definite the criteria for fibromyalgia and adopt the name in 1990, suggests the drug companies are guilty of “a little disease-mongering” to encourage patients to buy their medication. The business writer reports that the companies have been successful in the actions showing huge increases in sales and profits between 2007 and 2008 for Lyrica and Cymbalta –both approved for the treatment of fibromyalgia by the FDA.
Responding to questions from the author the drug companies say their actions are “just the evolution of greater awareness” of a condition that has been poorly managed and neglected.
The article includes the story of a patient taking both Cymbalta and Lyrica and three other medications. Describing her medicated condition as fibro fog she is quoted as saying she is so medicated she feels as though she is not here. Struggling to find money for her medication she claimed she is receiving free samples of Lyrica from the drug company representative to help her get through the month.
The article reports both drug companies spent of $125 million on advertising in the first nine months of 2008.
Grants from the drug companies are available for education for doctors, non-profit making groups and advocacy. Some of this money is used for research and patients outreach.
President of the USA National Fibromyalgia Association Lynne Matallana is quoted as saying lack funding would impact on patients’ care due to lack of money for medical education. Matthew Perrone claims that 40% of the funding for the $1.5 million a year Association’s operations is provided by corporate funds, like those given by Eli Lilly and Pfizer. Lynne Matallana who has fibromyalgia claimed she visited 37 doctors before being diagnosed.
In a Pfizer television commercial the drug company acknowledged fibromyalgia is real, but Matthew Perrone says the researchers report it is not that easy. The condition usually known as a syndrome, has been described as a disease, a collection of symptoms and even a behaviour disorder.
This description suggesting a behaviour disorder has caused some concern among the fibromyalgia community who insist it is not a mental disorder.
It is thought that up to 12million people in the USA may have fibromyalgia in the USA with a large percentage of them women.
Market research on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry indicated that possibly 50% of this number are not diagnosed said Dr. Daniel Clauw (University of Michigan).
Dr. Don Goldenberg (Tufts University) who has spent 30 years working with fibromyalgia claims it remains a “murky area”. He said patients preferred to have a name for what ailed them. It was suggested that while Dr. Goldenberg is a diagnosing patients he said a number of doctors no longer diagnosed FMS patients suggesting it is a “catchall covering a range of symptoms”.
A professor at the University of North Carolina Dr. Nortin Hadler believes identifying fibromyalgia can “doom” patients to endure suffering for the rest of their lifetime and just confirms to them that this is a condition with no cure. Dr. Hadler said the likelihood for patients diagnosed with fibromyalgia improving was “pretty dismal”
His view was that fibromyalgia was not a medical disease but a psychological condition (‘having to do with the mind’). He believed therapy should be available instead of drugs and medication, to help patients “unlearn” their problem.
Dr. Clauw whose research has revealed patient’ brains reveal “unusual activity” when suffering pain, confirms fibromyalgia is a legitimate disease and he had no time for experts who analyse definitions instead of helping patients. He also agreed that the new drugs approved by the FDA do not work for all patients.
This article is a summary of a story published by AP Associated Press distributed by Google. © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jZDQjkt1twJK_3GpRKJUbXZ_-oMwD967HPG81
Fibromyalgia is not ‘murky’ to millions of people who live with it
Letter to the Editor of CantonRep.com Posted Feb 13, 2009
I read with interest “Drug makers push boosts a ‘murky’ ailment” (Feb. 9). I am both a patient with fibromyalgia and a physician who specializes in this condition, so I find it incredible when the article refers to so-called experts who are skeptical that the diagnosis even exists and that drug makers are somehow responsible for perpetuating this condition.
Fibromyalgia is not “murky” to the many millions of patients worldwide who have it, and to the thousands of doctors who diagnose and treat it. It is a real condition with its own insurance code, specific diagnostic criteria and proven helpful treatments. It is recognized by major medical and legal organizations, including the Food and Drug Administration.
We have not found a cure yet, but ongoing research is necessary to help improve the quality of lives of those who suffer from this chronic disease. To date, the FDA has approved three medicines for treatment of fibromyalgia pain.
These so-called experts mentioned in the article do not believe fibromyalgia exists, thus they never diagnose or treat it. To me, no experience with this condition means no expertise. Fortunately for patients, there are many primary-care doctors and specialists (in the USA) who understand, research and treat fibromyalgia: the true experts.
Unlike the critics, these professionals have actual experience and skills in trying to improve lives affected by chronic pain and will prescribe approved medications, not blame drug makers or patients for the pain. The true experts may not be as vocal as the so-called experts, but their efforts to help those with fibromyalgia have spoken the loudest.
MARK J. PELLEGRINO, M.D.,
JACKSON TOWNSHIP
Reproduced courtesy of CantonRep.com Connecting Stark County
(http://www.cantonrep.com/opinion/letters/x817675485/Fibromyalgia-isnt-murky-to-millions-of-people-who-live-with-it)
National Fibromyalgia Association’s Response to
AP Article on Drug Companies & Fibromyalgia
Fibromyalgia & CFS Blog Friday February 13, 2009
By Adrienne Dellwo, About.com Guide to Fibromyalgia & CFS
The inaccuracies of the recent AP report, Drug makers push boosts ‘murky’ illness, go even beyond what I pointed out in a recent blog. Here is the response from Lynne Matallana, president of the National Fibromyalgia Association:
“To the editors:
“The recent Associated Press story on fibromyalgia hardly qualifies as news; it merely regurgitates the same arguments that have been published in the past and offers the opinions of the same two men who have built careers out of drawing attention away from the hundreds of scientists who continue to make amazing scientific strides toward understanding the underlying cause(s) and pathophysiology of what fibromyalgia patients experience.
“By perpetuating this message, the article implies that it is more acceptable to debate names or labels for this “set of symptoms” and to point fingers at the usual “villains” (i.e.: pharma and the non-profits who accept money from them), than to focus on the millions of desperate patients who deserve to have a voice in the discussion.
“The fact is that credible medical institutions and organizations recognize fibromyalgia as a life-altering disease; the fact is that patients who suffer with FM depend on the medical system (including pharmaceutical companies) to help them inform the public that this is a very real illness and that they need treatments, including pharmaceutical agents, to help them get through each day and to look forward to some sort of quality of life in the future.
“This article misinforms readers in a way that undermines and victimizes innocent people. By telling only selective parts of the story the author is perpetuating misperceptions and making it difficult, if not impossible, for readers to grasp what is truly important: that we need to stop debating and pointing fingers and start asking why it is perceived as acceptable to stigmatize a patient population just because medical research has not yet provided us with all the information needed to understand that particular illness. Every illness seems to go through a stage of having to prove its legitimacy, but why should the patients be suspect during that phase of research?
“Why would AP print information that is simply not true – people with fibromyalgia are “more likely to have a history of mental illness and are economically disadvantaged?” That is totally false, as is the writer’s statement that the National Fibromyalgia Research Association received pharma money to fund Dr. Clauw’s functional MRI study. The money for all of the NFRA’s funded research came from the founder (the husband of a fibromyalgia patient), general donations, and revenue generated from a non-profit bingo game. (Yes, the FM community has had to rely on bingo games to fund our research!)
“How can we allow the system to fail millions of people whose only ‘fault’ is to have developed a devastating illness? Along with the rest of the fibromyalgia patient community, I look forward to the day when society (including the medical community, the media, and our government agencies) accepts the responsibility of treating fibromyalgia patients like any other group of chronically ill patients; when it is a given that fibromyalgia will be further studied, that treatments will be developed and made accessible to patients, that the media presents the facts rather than perpetuating threadbare controversies.
“Now that would be news worth printing.
“Sincerely,
“Lynne Matallana
President, National Fibromyalgia Association”
Courtesy About.com
http://chronicfatigue.about.com/b/2009/02/13/national-fibromyalgia-associations-response-to-ap-article-on-drug-companies-fibromyalgia.htm
A ‘Murky Business’. Yes it is REAL
http://fmsglobalnews.wordpress.com
A FIBROMITE’S RESPONSE
To the Editor and Business Writer Matthew Perrone Associated Press (info@ap.org).
Dear Sirs,
It is with great distress that I have read the article that denies the existence of this truly horrible illness. I would like to stress firstly that I am not a previous sufferer of mental illness, although I am now being treated for depression, and I am from an economically secure background.
Just answer me one question, if this illness is all in my head, how come so many millions of us suffer from such similar symptoms. Are we transmitting then to each other telepathically? We do not suffer identical intensity of each symptom, some us have irritable bowel syndrome worse than others for instance, but we all suffer from unexplained severe pain, terrible tiredness and loss of the quality of our lives.
I, sir, am a qualified psychologist who for a long time thought I was going mad, especially as every test I had came back negative. To actually realise that the awful symptoms I was suffering were not a result of “being in my head” came as a great relief and if drug companies are making profits that can be used to find out what causes this and find a cure I say hallelujah!!!
Articles like this do nothing to help and indeed set us back and damage us immeasurably in our quest to be taken seriously and find a cure.
Yours in despair
Carolyn from Felpham, West Sussex. UK
THE FIBROMYALGIA COMMUNITY RESPONDS
TO ASSOCIATED PRESS ARTICLE
1. The Associated Press article by Matthew Perrone (February 8, 2009, “Drug makers’ push boosts ‘murky’ aliment) has drawn several comments.
Click here to read the article.
Click here to read the NFA’s response, as well as some comments by other readers.
To send a letter to AP business editor Kevin Noble or writer Matthew Perrone, email info@ap.org (no attachments).
2. The NFA is in the process of contacting media outlets across the nation that published Mr. Perrone’s article. In addition to sharing the disappointment of the fibromyalgia community, our response provides accurate information about fibromyalgia, including the science behind fibromyalgia and the lack of research funding.
3. For a list of 10 ways to respond to negative and false Information about fibromyalgia, click here.
4. Several points made in the AP article were addressed by fibromyalgia experts on February 11, 2009 during a medical talk show produced by Patient Power. Guests included leading FM researcher Daniel Clauw, MD, professor of medicine in the Division of Rheumatology, University of Michigan Health System; Martha Beck, Ph.D., who has been diagnosed with fibromyalgia; and Lynne Matallana, president and founder of the National Fibromyalgia Association. Click here to listen.
5. The NFA has created two information sheets—the Fibromyalgia Fact Sheet and Recognition, Research and Science—for your reference and use in helping dispel misunderstandings about fibromyalgia.
Click here to view the Fibromyalgia Fact Sheet.
Click here to view an overview on Recognition, Research and Science.
6. In addition to a variety of articles about managing FM symptoms, overlapping conditions, and healthy lifestyle choices, the NFA’s 10-year anniversary issue (September-November 2007) includes a special section on the History of Fibromyalgia. Topics include:
The state of FM and how it has changed in the last 10 years
How changing perspectives on FM have impacted the specialties that focus on it
How patients have succeeded in changing public perception of FM
The latest studies on medications commonly prescribed to treat FM. Click here
Undermining the Validity of FM
Sharon Waldrop – Director, Fibromyalgia Association of Michigan USA
My name is Sharon Waldrop. I am the Founder and Director of the Fibromyalgia Association of Michigan, a volunteer nonprofit organization. I am a patient living with fibromyalgia (FM) and I am deeply disappointed in the article that ran yesterday in the Free Press copied off the AP. I am writing to you to ask if you would do a story on fibromyalgia to provide a balanced report on fibromyalgia?
I am very sad that the millions of people who are suffering and struggling every minute of every day with fibromyalgia never get a chance to give their viewpoint in the media. Instead articles are written to please editors who have a formula that dictates what type of story “gets attention” and therefore gets printed …never taking into consideration or caring about the ramifications that their message will have on millions of innocent people.
The ramifications are that more marriages crumble, friendships (i.e. support systems) end, people lose jobs, people are denied access to care because the opinions of a select few are given mass attention. Credible medical institutions like Johns Hopkins University, the University of Michigan, the National Institutes of Health, (just to name a few), recognize fibromyalgia as a life-altering disease. It is time to treat FM patients with respect. Millions of people suffer from FM. Millions more are suffering too as they watch their loved one struggle. These people do not need to read stories that FM is not real. They need to read stories about the exciting medical advances in fibromyalgia like the brain imaging study done at the University of Michigan that concretely prove people’s brains with FM act differently than people without FM.
They need to be given hope and given the treatment they deserve as a human being.
My group has over 800 members in the Metro Detroit area. We provide support and education to people affected by fibromyalgia. People come to me in tears because they don’t know where to go for help. I am pleased that for 11 years I have given people a place to go – even if it is just for one night a month. No human being should have to fight an illness and also fight with spouses, friends, employers and yes, even doctors that they are in disabling physical pain. The question is not why do we continue to undermine the validity of FM but why are people afraid to provide support to people suffering from the chronic pain of fibromyalgia?
In this time of uncertainty in the world, people more than ever need hope and help. Please will you write a story to help your readers understand FM? On behalf of my group we would greatly appreciate it.
Is Fibromyalgia Real?
Andrew Schorr -
Founder Patient Power
We could have predicted it. Naysayers who say that now there are three approved prescriptions medicines for fibromyalgia, a chronic pain syndrome, marketing is fueling hype hype about a condition some people say is all in a patient’s head.
Here we go again. The drug companies are always an easy target. When a drug is a success it can bring in more than a billion dollars a year. Treatments are costly and many people, including millions with no insurance or who are under insured, struggle to pay for them. So the pharmaceutical industry continues to have a public relations problem.
But none of that has anything to do with whether people, primarily women, are suffering with debilitating pain, pain that is effectively treated often by the approved medicines.
Critics including some doctors say that because there is no definitive test for fibromyalgia it is a disservice to rush to treatment with the new drugs when maybe some patients need psychotherapy instead. It is in the patient’s head.
I am not qualified to evaluate who needs the medicines and who does not. But I do know this: the FDA advisory panels and the FDA itself would not have approved the medicines, nor would the drug companies have invested hundreds of millions of dollars on clinic trials, if they had no effectiveness.
After approval the drug companies have hit the airwaves with television commercials and with websites trying to raises awareness for the condition and that there are approved treatments. They also have been funding education programs to connect rheumatologists, who know all about fibromyalgia, with many primary care doctors who don’t. And they are funding patient education in partnership with groups like the National Fibromyalgia Association, founded by a patient and an organization that has cried out for awareness and effective treatments for years.
Is this public and medical education effort a bad thing?
Some media reports suggest it is: getting doctors and the public in a tizzy about a phony or overused diagnosis fueled by greedy drug companies who want to make billions. Oh please! While one could argue such important issues should be debated, I think we should focus on how to help give suffering patients relief from their pain and celebrate that private industry has made huge investments to meet the need.
Do we need to sort out exactly who needs these treatments and who could benefit in other ways? Sure. But to cast the same old aspersions on the drug companies is unfair and if we keep skewering them one day we can kiss drug development goodbye. The next time you swallow a pill that helps, you ask yourself what the world would be like if no one invented or marketed products like that.
FIBROMYALGIA Painfully Real
Frederic Porcase Physician,
Jacksonville USA
Monday’s article demeans all of us with fibromyalgia.
The horrible part was the “Mind over Matter?” stating, “Patients diagnosed with fibromyalgia are more likely to have a history of mental illness, be overweight and economically disadvantaged. Some doctors say their suffering may stem from difficult circumstances rather than disease.”
I run a support group for people with fibromyalgia, and that is not the case. We are all type “A” personalities who have been forced to change our lives due to this horrible disease/syndrome.
All of us would give up our “great” disability funds for the more profitable lives we were living before the chronic pain and fatigue. We may be overweight now, due to not being able to exercise, but this was not the case before the chronic pain and fatigue started not after the diagnosis.
We all had the symptoms years before we actually got a diagnosis. No, we are not hypochondriacs. Fibromyalgia is an invisible disease. Thank goodness we don not look as bad as we feel. Walk in our shoes just one day and then say we have a mental disorder.
Courtesy Opinion.jacksonville/com
http://jacksonville.com/opinion/letters_from_readers/2009-02-11/story/letters_from_readers
Utterly real
Letters Published: Tue, Feb. 10, 2009
Taryn Oesch – Raleigh USA
I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia when I was 13 by a Duke rheumatologist. It was a struggle to get back to feeling healthy, but it was a relief to know that I wasn’t imagining my achiness and debilitating fatigue. I have always considered myself fortunate to live in a time when fibromyalgia is considered a real syndrome.
The Feb. 9 Associated Press article “Help or hype? Drug makers fibromyalgia grants raise questions,” however, made me realize we still have a way to go.
Apparently, there are still those who would question the diagnosis, despite the fact that it has helped many people. It disturbed me especially that the article seemed to sympathize with the skeptics. Having a complaint of “I’m very tired” is hard enough to try to explain to professors or employers.
The only press those of us with fibromyalgia need is press that makes everyone more aware that yes, fibromyalgia is real and yes, its diagnosis is backed by medical research.
Courtesy The News&Observer
http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/letters/story/1401086.html
READERS: If you are writing to the Editor of Associated Press or the Business Writer Matthew Perrone, please send a copy of the email to me. I am interested and would like to publish your comments. Thanks. Please write to fmsglobalnews@me.com.Jeanne
