Healthy Skepticism Library item: 11463

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Publication type: news

Bellisle M.
Former Wyeth pharmaceutical rep testifies company downplayed risks
Reno Gazette-Journal 2007 Sep 13
http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070913/NEWS10/709130366/1016/NEWS

Full text:

A former salesman for pharmaceutical giant Wyeth testified Wednesday that he was coached by the company to downplay studies showing its hormone replacement drug Prempro increased a woman’s risk for breast cancer.

But Wyeth lawyers sought to discredit Brett Hendricks, who worked as a salesman in Las Vegas for Wyeth from 1981 to 2002, by pointing out that he was fired and later worked as a consultant for the plaintiffs’ lawyers.

“That’s how we were trained,” Hendricks said. “To offset any bad publicity, we would redirect and emphasize the benefits of the product and say the benefits far outweighed any problems that might be out there.”

Over the years, he said, when reports came out suggesting there was an increased risk of breast cancer for women using the estrogen drug Premarine or combination estrogen and progestin pill Prempro, the company would call emergency meetings to teach sales representatives how to respond to doctors’ concerns.

Salesmen were directed to tell doctors that most studies did not show an increase of breast cancer, Hendricks said.

When Prempro came on the market in 1995, Hendricks said Wyeth encouraged sales people to push the product as hard as they could and provided money and support for that. Company officials said they were to promote the drugs to woman entering menopause and to use it “for the rest of their lives.”

The drug now is sold in small doses, and doctors are advised to limit the time women spend on the medication.

Three Northern Nevada women, Jeraldine Scofield, 75, of Fallon, Arlene Rowatt, 67, of Incline Village and Pamela Forrester, 64, of Yerington, have sued Wyeth claiming the hormone replacement drugs caused their breast cancer, and that Wyeth failed to test the drugs or warn of their risks.

Wyeth lawyers pressed Hendricks about his departure from the company. He acknowledged that he was fired in 2002 for showing photographs to some physicians of a woman in a bathing suit with stickers of a certain medication on her body.

“After you were terminated, you began making allegations against Wyeth?” company lawyer Dan Webb asked Hendricks.

Hendricks denied that and said during his 21 years with Wyeth, he had always done what he was told. He said the allegation that he was showing the doctors the pictures as a way of selling the drugs was not true, and that he had taken the photographs for another sales person.

Webb also asked Hendricks whether he had made an agreement with lawyers for the three women to work as a consultant for $100 per hour.

Hendricks said he had been named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by the Reno law firm White, Meany and Wetherall, and reached an agreement with the lawyers to be dropped from the suit in exchange for providing information about how pharmaceutical sales reps worked.

He said he had been paid about $7,500 by the law firm since the agreement was reached.

The trial before Washoe District Judge Robert Perry is expected to run six weeks.