A rheumatologist based in Geneva, Switzerland, says he will no longer prescribe Novartis medicines to patients as a way of protesting jobs cuts and plant closings the drugmaker is undertaking in the country, according to a blog he wrote for La Tribune de Geneve.
“My only way of protesting is to go on a prescription strike,” Bertrand Buchs wrote, according to The Local. He argues that he doesn’t understand “the financial logic” behind the decision to close one particular facility that employs a couple of hundred people, since their salaries “are only a small detail in the balance sheet."
Here is a translation: "I can not understand the economic logic to close the production...and fire 220 people," wrote Bertrand Buchs. "...The strong franc, ok. Low margins of generic, ok. Rules of marketing drugs more and more stringent, ok. The duty to anticipate the future, ok. 220 of 120 000 employees, or 0.2%. 200 million economy. There, I have trouble. A detail in a report. What will improve productivity? That cover it? I feel like you're playing with people. Pawns unimportant. I can no longer agree" (see more here, but be sure to scroll down for the item headlined "I Boycott").
His protest comes just two weeks after Novartis announced plans to eliminate another 2,000 jobs, including 1,100 in Switzerland, which is a blow to the country where the drugmaker is based. The cuts involve shuttering two production facilities there, as well as shifting various R&D work to other countries, including the US and India (back story).
The announcement has provoked strong emotions. Along with regular protests at Novartis facilities, a local trade union and the youth faction of the Socialist Party recently held a demonstration outside the villa inhabited by Novartis chairman Dan Vasella (read here).
Meanwhile, the Association of Physicians of Geneva has given him its support "unanimously" and "without hesitation," according to another post Buchs wrote on his blog. He said he also plans to ask his colleagues to join his protest at an upcoming meeting. "Hoping that my small pebble will make some ripples on the surface of the water."
However, Buchs tells the Tribune that he will not let his boycott affect his patients. Although there are many equivalent meds available, "if a specific treatment requires the Novartis brand, I will give in.” He adds that he intends to tell his patients about his boycott, but they "always have the final say."
The Directorate-General for Health in Geneva is unperturbed by the boycott. "The therapist has the freedom to prescribe a particular drug, and if the interest of the patient is respected, I don’t see where there's a problem,” Adrien Broad, head of the directorate, tells La Tribune de Genève.
As for Novartis, a spokesperson for the drugmaker tells the paper that "the announcement of the closing of the production site has created several reactions in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. For us the demands of people involved are important, so we try to talk to them directly about the reasons behind (the decision).”
12 Comments
I don't think the Novartians will lose any sleep on this one. They don't even make any rheumatology drugs.
This is a Swiss doctor doing his own "occupy" thing against this co that has turned into something that no Swiss person can understand. Once this was a darling (should we sat two darlings) company that everyone loved and appreciated. This was during the golden days when this co as the whole pharma biz were ethical and cared about their customers,the sick and the environment they operated in, including the people of course. No longer this is the case for the bottom line is the only thing they care about. And this is not just any old positive bottom line. It must be maximum and beyond any human possibility. At one time Sandoz HQ were quite happy with 5-10% returns from their affiliates accross globe. Today if that is what you send them from say, Canada or USA it is completely unacceptable and you are branded as failure and shown the door. Greed is not everything, they say but the only thing.If such boycott spreads amongst doctors it can seriously affect that "impossible" bottom line for most of their drugs are available in different versions from other, maybe not as greed pharma cos.
Pharmaceutical companies feel no social responsibility anymore. The only responsibility is shareholder responsibility. How sad given the state of so many economies and people losing jobs everywhere while they sit on billions in cash reserves.
Isolated incident or a trend. Only time will tell. It just takes a spark to light a fire.
Yep, just like The Boss said, you can't light a fire without a spark, lest you be dancing in the dark.
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/bruce+springsteen/dancing+in+the+dark_20025010.html
Novartis doesn;t make a rheumatology drug? The rheumatologists prescribe and infuse Reclast you dimwit.
Tim, is this after the prednisone they prescribe causes osteoporosis?
Rheumatologists should stick to joints, as Suzanne suggests. One of my colleagues is an oral and maxillofacial surgeon who has reconstructed a half dozen mandibles necrosed by this class of drugs. But bisphosphonates and osteoporosis is a cash cow for the rheumatologists, and as Suzanne suggests, gives them something to push besides the dangerous corticosteroids and the carcinogenic TNF-alpha inhibitors.
Isolated incidence or trend???? Has that poster missed the the 40,000+ people that have been heave ho'd in the name of the bottom line in the several yrs across Pharma? Would say a tend indeed sadly!
Dilbert must see a rheumatologist: http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2011-10-29
EB I did the math from various sources:
-in 2000 there were 1,342,700 drug industry FTE's worldwide.
-since 2006 there have been 297,650 layoffs.
Based on these numbers, I project that in 50 years this industry will be extinct and Ed can retire.
Suzanne and OII, unless you live in a major metropolitan city, a rheumatologist treats both joints AND RA. Having osteoporosis myself, I can tell you I have never been on prednisone and am 50 sobut you need to not be so narrow minded.