In Documents on Pain Drug Celebrex, Signs of Doubt and Deception - NYTimes.com

Dr. Steven Nissen, one of the great consumer advocates in the medical profession,
is overseeing a clinical study set to conclude when the Celebrex patent expires in 2014

The Times reports on the smoking gun emails in the Celebrex case.  Another story of marketing-driven overselling of a new drug.  We saw the same thing in the Vioxx cases.  As marge said in Fargo "and all for just a little bit of money".  - GWC
In Documents on Pain Drug Celebrex, Signs of Doubt and Deception - NYTimes.com:
by Kate Thomas
 "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.

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