Fool Me Twice? - Boehringer Ingelheim, Medtronic Settle Lawsuits Alleging Deceptive Marketing

It seems like it has been really quiet on the legal settlement front in the US, but maybe corporate executives wanted to wait until things c...

Planned Obsolescence Disguised as Innovation, Oligopoly Disguised as a Free Market, and the Enrichment of Oligarchs

The New York Times published another article in its series on the high cost of US health care.  This one, focused on the care of type 1 di...

Incoming President of IOM Outed as Member of Boards of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Medtronic and Pepsico

We just discussed how the new CEO of the National Quality Forum was revealed to be a member of the board of directors of Premier Inc, and d...

55 of Medtronic's Best Hospital Friends, Including HCA, Settle for $34 Million

The case of the over-marketing of Kyphon's kyphoplasty device (look here ) just got more complicated, and now appears to have involved a...

Another Revolving Door Variant: From Academia with Millions in Medtronic Royalties, to the White House, to the Health Care Service Corp

The revolving door spins, and where it will stop, nobody knows... In October, 2010, we noted questions about how Dr Stephen Ondra got to be ...

Marketers' Systemic Influence over Ostensibly Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed Publications: the Medtronic Infuse BMP-2 Example

On the heels of our discussion of how one pharmaceutical company employed a "publications strategy" to commission and control ran...