A federal judge has unsealed thousands of pages of damning internal documents showing how Pfizer scientists twisted scientific evidence to sell the painkiller Celebrex, Katie Thomas reports for the New York Times:

A research director for Pfizer was positively buoyant after reading that an important medical conference had just featured a study claiming that the new arthritis drug Celebrex was safer on the stomach than more established drugs.

“They swallowed our story, hook, line and sinker,” he wrote in an e-mail to a colleague.

The truth was that Celebrex was no better at protecting the stomach from serious complications than other drugs. It appeared that way only because Pfizer and its partner, Pharmacia, presented the results from the first six months of a yearlong study rather than the whole thing.

The companies had a lot riding on the outcome of the study, given that Celebrex’s effect on the stomach was its principal selling point. Earlier studies had shown it was no better at relieving pain than common drugs — like ibuprofen — already on the market. [NYT]

“The documents suggest that officials made a strategic decision during the early trial to be less than forthcoming about the drug’s safety,” Thomas writes. 

The documents, which date to the early 2000s, were released persuant to a lawsuit by pension funds against Pfizer. The funds contend that, by promoting Celebrex based on incomplete data, Pfizer misled investors, thereby incurring responsibility for the drop in stock value when the truth came out.

It wasn’t just investors who paid for Pfizer’s deviousness. Based on misleading promotions, insurers shelled out billions of dollars for a drug with no proven benefit over cheaper alternatives. Taxpayers were fleeced when publicly-funded insurance programs bought into the Celebrex marketing craze. The biggest losers of all were Celebrex patients, who were exposed to unjustified risks because their doctors were sucked in by Pfizer’s blandishments.

[Photo credit: Kimberly Brown-Azzarello, Creative Commons.]

Great news from Kit Rachlis, editor of the American Prospect, a distinguished but cash-strapped journal of liberal ideas:

We made it! 

(As someone once said, woo-freaking-hoo!!) 

At the eleventh and a half hour on Monday, the Prospect received news of two big gifts that put us over the top of that once unreachable-sounding fundraising goal. Since word of our financial situation first became public—just seven weeks ago—the campaign to “Save the Prospect” has raised just under $1.3 million dollars. We are stunned, pleased, and enormously grateful. [TAP]

For several weeks, the fate of the Prospect hung in the balance. Thanks to the generosity of its donors, and the tenacity of its fundraisers, the liberal magazine will continue to produce the high quality reporting and policy analysis that its admirers have come to expect.

The Prospect, co-founded in 1990 by Hillman judge Harold Meyerson, has been an incubator for liberal talent. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Nick Confessore got his start there before moving on to the New York Times. Hillman Prize-winners Ezra Klein and Jon Cohn are also Prospect alums. The magazine currently serves as a platform for such talented young writers as Amanda Marcotte, Scott Lemieux, and Monica Potts.

[Photo credit: Lindsay Beyerstein, all rights reserved.]

A federal judge has ordered a Kentucky coal company to reinstate an outspoken miner who blew the whistle on safety violations, Dave Jamieson reports:

Kentucky miner Charles Scott Howard lost his job at Cumberland River Coal Co. last May, after years of butting heads with management over safety issues at the mine. Now, more than 13 months later, Howard may suit up and head back into the mine, whether his employer likes it or not.

A federal judge ordered Friday that Howard’s company immediately reinstate him at the mine and pay a $30,000 fine for discriminating against a whistleblower. The sharply worded decision said managers at Cumberland River, as well as its parent company, coal giant Arch Coal, went to great lengths to find a reason to fire Howard after he brought his mine to the attention of federal safety officials. [HuffPo]

Howard is famous in coal country for his willingness to challenge unsafe working conditions. His exploits have even inspired a folk song.

[Photo credit: Tiggy, Creative Commons.]

Freelance journalist Susan Greene speaking about her Sidney Award-winning story and video, “The Gray Box: An Investigative Look at Solitary Confinement,” at the Investigative Reporters and Editors Conference (IRE) in Boston. The Gray Box appeared in the Dart Society Reports, the journal of the Dart Center, a non-profit that provides training and support for journalists covering trauma and violence.

IRE is the nation’s premiere professional organization for investigative journalists. The Sidney Hillman Foundation is proud to see so many of our past winners speaking at this prestigious event.

[Photo credit: Lindsay Beyerstein.]