Talk:ApothéCure

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I added some clarifying wording to the second paragraph, which suggested potential wrongdoing. Apothecure is a compounding pharmacy and provides custom compounds to physicians -- and does NOT dispense compounds to patients.

Disclosure: I am a public relations practitioner who has worked for Apothecure, although I do not work on their behalf currently.

Dan Keeney
DPK Public Relations
[redacted]
[redacted]
www.dpkpr.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.208.110.206 (talk • contribs)

Regarding your change to the article, as the primary author of this page, I merely relayed what the story said: Apothecure "was investigated as a result of complaints that it illegally dispensed testosterone and growth hormones, once to a pregnant woman". Whether the dispensation was actually to the patients' physicians is not made clear.

As for the "and subsequently cleared" addition, I will reword it to reflect the more accurate, "In each case, according to pharmacy board officials, the board failed to find enough evidence to discipline the company, but instead issued a letter of warning." — Scientizzle 21:20, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

More possible sources...

Plenty of negative stuff out there...

• [1], [2], [3]
• [4]

I'm trying to locate possible positive reliable sources... — Scientizzle 22:55, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Revert

I have carried out a total revert of the last 5 edits These were all made by one new SPA who

• Removed correct inline references and substituted ELs in the main text, making it almost unreadable.
• Inserted very promotional material - a huge list of web-sites - many of which appear to be offering the company products. These links are to home-pages, not articles referring to ApotheCure, and there is no WP:RS cited for including them at all.
• Included strange claims - that the company regularly attended various academies - companies can't attend academies
• Included "a mission statement"

Although I am aware of the Assume Good Faith guidelines, and these changes may have been due to inexperience, an SPA on an article like this, making apparently promotional changes, probably has a Conflict of interest
Arjayay (talk) 12:00, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Dead Links

I clicked a few of the supporting links to the article and found at least 2 that appear to be dead. I haven't time to make a detailed survey, but it's probable that there are even more given that the 1st two that I clicked were both dead. The article makes some serious and what I would consider to be biased assertions and the entirety of the wikipedia article relies on a handful of newspaper articles, some of which are no longer "live" and verifiable. What is wikipedia's policy in this situation?Jonny Quick (talk) 20:05, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Verifiability is policy. Wikipedia:Offline sources & Wikipedia:Link rot discuss the situation. Just because a link rots, doesn't mean the source suddenly fails WP:V, assuming that a proper citation is available. I noticed some of the Portland Tribune articles have faulty links now. I don't have time to fix the links presently, but it should be possible to dig them out of the PT archive. — Scientizzle 21:26, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Colchesine and Apothecure: Parallel History

The more I read about Colchisine, the more disturbing this article becomes. When all I had read of Colchisine was from this article, I had the impression that it was a drug that existed in some kind of medical "grey area", alternative medicine, conspiracy theories and tin-foil hats. But then I read about how 2 years after the deaths in Oregon, the FDA awards an exclusive contract and monopoly to URL Pharmacy in exchange for a 45 million dollar "application fee" and then 2 years later Japanese Pharma company Takeda purchases URL Pharma (and it's primary drug Colchisine) for 800 million dollars. And while none of this may have direct bearing on the incident described in the "Controversy" section, it may indicate why the FDA and the Federal Government put so much effort into criminally prosecuting a misdemeanor offense for a relatively minor incident. I can't help but wonder if lobbying efforts were not already underway to award the entirety of the Colchisine market to URL Pharmacy and these incidents were used by the government as a pretext to "regulate" these compounding pharmacies.

Colchisine appears to be the, or at least "a" standard treatment for gout, to the extent that URL Pharmacy was willing to pay around 100 million dollars to acquire the exclusive right to manufacture and market it, and within a couple of years of that acquisition, Takeda valued URL Pharmacy at 800 million. I have problems ignoring all of that.

I also have problems with the absence of other information, such as the names, ages and general medical conditions of the 3 patients that died, the fact that autopsy of one of the patients did not reveal high levels of colchisine, the name of the physician(s) that prescribed the drug, but the fact that the drug was being used in a non-approved manner by the FDA, but then the FDA did not approve the drug for treating ANY condition, gout, autism, lower back pain, etc.., also the name of the "now defunct" alternative medical clinic. Also absent is any mention of whether or not the drugs dispensed by Apothecure were ordered by a physician. Some of the language in the article seems to indicate that Apothecure sold the drugs directly to the patient with no involvement of a physician. It seems to me that of all the specific information that could be in this article, only that information directly identifying Apothecure and it's owner has been cherry-picked for inclusion. What about the details of how the shipment of mislabeled drugs occured? The name of the presumed employee is not mentioned.

And another problem I have with this article is that of scale. How statistically relevant is this incident, compared to other compound pharmacies, and how relevant is that number compared to what mistakes the major pharmaceutical companies make?Jonny Quick (talk) 04:59, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

And as I revisit this situation, the conspiracy seems to deepen. Today I discovered this legal article:

http://www.fdalawblog.net/fda_law_blog_hyman_phelps/2013/01/the-prosecution-of-gary-d-osbornan-old-school-park-prosecution.html

Which says that Osborn was prosecuted under the "resurrected" "Park Doctrine" which gives the government the ability to hold Corporate Officers criminally liable for the actions of their employees. From the article I get the general impression that this gives the government the ability to "cherry pick" which cases in which they choose to prosecute the Corporate Officer (Apothecure) and which cases they do not (Exxon, Union Carbide, Haliburton, etc...) So then the sequence of events:

1) A clerical error results in a mislabeled medication that results in 3 deaths. 2) The Federal Government "cherry picks" this case for special, criminal prosecution. 3) A $45 million dollar application fee is paid to the US Government to allow exclusive rights to manufacture and sell the medication (a monopoly) that caused those 3 deaths. 4) 2 years later the company that owns the monopoly sells to a larger company for a $750 million profit. That bribe was a good investment.

So does Wikipedia really, really, REALLY care about those 3 deaths, the compounding pharmacy, it's owner or is Wikipedia being used to justify a $45 million dollar bribe and a $750 million dollar profit? Puts all of these altruistic do-gooders involved in this hatchet job article into perspective, I think. Plus when you get into a lot of the allegations about whether or not Osborn, Apothecure, etc... was "licensed" (or otherwise authorized) to sell that product to that market, no one mentions whether or not that authorization was required, or if there were other businesses that were doing the same thing at the time. And whether or not out-of-state businesses are STILL selling in Oregon without a license. Meaning, rather than pointing to some legal, moral, ethical deficiency on the part of Osborn & Apothecure, the allegations could be interpreted to simply mean that there IS (or was) no requirement for licensing. Because if there was, there where is the citation from Oregon law and/or regulations that prohibits it? The fact that the allegation is made without a citation showing that it was illegal to do so indicates to me that the allegation was made to paint Osborn and Apothecure in a negative light (negative reputation management), and using the trust of wikipedia readers in order to do it.Jonny Quick (talk) 17:37, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

"Controversy" Deletions

I have deleted the 2nd paragraph for 3 reasons, and could find no way to fix the problems without making the entire paragraph meaningless. 1) "may have been illegally dispensed" weasel word. It's been 8 years. Either it happened or it didn't. 2) An incident that had "insufficient evidence" isn't an incident, it's a complaint by an anonymous person, and not worthy of inclusion 3) "may have been several violations" is also weasel-y. There were charges and a settlement, so I think it's time to update the article to reflect what has happened since then. In case anyone is interested, I meant what I wrote about the parallel history and colchesine, and am concerned Big Pharma has used Wikipedia to do a hatchet-job on a small-fries compounding pharmacy in order to make hundreds of millions of dollars by acquiring a government-awarded monopoly. After finalizing this, I'm going to browse the large pharmaceutical companies' wikipedia pages, and see if those articles list each and every violation, and every incident that resulted in someone's death.Jonny Quick (talk) 05:17, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

The removal you are making appears to be a WP:POV issue. The information is sourced, there are no weasel words, there is a clarification that the company was not found to have violated the issue, but were still issued a letter of warning. You are also removing sourced information about the fact that the company violated the law in Oregon. I'm sorry, but this appears to be unwarranted removal of sourced information to influence the article to one POV. I am re-instating the previously accepted version, that was gained through consensus, do not revert it without getting consensus either here, or in a WP:RFC. --Fbifriday (talk) 05:35, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

This article seems to have been written entirely by one person, so I do not see how you can assert there was "consensus". Maybe I am missing something. Also, I can think of no more weasle-y word than "may", particularly when alleging serious crime, and that paragraph used the weasel word "may" twice in four sentences. You use a weasel word yourself in that (something) "appears" to be a WP:POV issue. Either it is or it is not, you either think so or you do not, and if you do I would expect you provide some justification for this belief. There is no "fact" of violations of the law in Oregon, only allegations and it has been over 5 years since those allegations have been made.Jonny Quick (talk) 08:04, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Okay then, allow me to clarify. It IS a POV edit. I was assuming good faith on your part, but I can no longer do so. You clearly stated you intended to change the POV of this article above when you wrote that you were "concerned Big Pharma has used Wikipedia to do a hatchet-job on a small-fries compounding pharmacy in order to make hundreds of millions of dollars by acquiring a government-awarded monopoly." You want to change the way the article reflects on the subject.

Second, in context, the word "May" makes perfect sense. "ApothéCure was investigated in 2004 following complaints that its compounds (testosterone and growth hormones) may have been illegally dispensed to patients, including a pregnant woman" It's not a weasel word, it's like saying "In the 1950s, the House Un-American Activities Committee investigated several people on accusations that they may be communists." It's just a statement of what they were accused of, not a sign of their guilt. However, the second part of the edit, I did find misplaced, and have moved it to the Settlement section, and renamed the section. Looking at this page, it needs all kinds of help for prose and flow. I'm going to tag it for copy-editing to clean it all up and make it nice, neat, and coherent, and then we can go from there. --Fbifriday (talk) 11:41, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Your NPOV statement assumes that your are starting with an article that has a neutral point of view, and that any changes I may wish to make are therefore POV. You SHOULD assume good faith. I have made my bias perfectly known. What's not known is the bias of the people that created the article. Consider that at the time of it's creation, there were literally millions of dollars floating around. I think this article is a "hatchet-job" and would like to apply standard wikipedia policies to make it more neutral, and to afford some balance. That's not an accusation, it's a question. While most of the article may be "sourced", what to do when the sources were/are all biased and beginning to rot? A brief look-over at my activities should make my lack of experience obvious. This is a good faith effort to move this article from what it is to something better, and any help in that regard will be appreciated.Jonny Quick (talk) 17:48, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

The fact that you admit a bias in this the exact reason you should not be editing this article, and exactly why I can not assume good faith. I was before, but I can't once you openly admit a bias one way. As for the bias of the sources, that is not up to us to decide. We use sources as they are available. For instance, on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act article, there are sources used that are most certainly biased, but we have to use the sources for the FACTS that are given. We ignore the slant when we edit. And the fact is, they were investigated following complaints that they MAY have illegally distributed their compounds. You can't change the fact that they were investigated simply by removing it from the article. --Fbifriday (talk) 06:11, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

"Bias", eh? Well now I've found 45 million reasons why someone with a handle "FBI" might swoop in and interfere with cleaning up a hatchet-job wikipedia article, make big statements about what he/she is going to do, and then is never heard from again. Did you get any of that 750 million dollars?Jonny Quick (talk) 17:52, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

So then, what's next. I still maintain this article is biased, and outdated. A few days ago it was listed for possible deletion. Now that status has changed. I find no record of this, nor who initiated the move to delete, nor what happened as a result of that. Isn't this stuff supposed to be documented?Jonny Quick (talk) 05:32, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

It is documented. Please see the notice about the deletion discussion at the top of the page. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 22:50, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Notability

Even though the deletion discussion resulted in no consensus, it seems clear to me that the company is notable. It has received non-trivial coverage in several news sources. However, this coverage is almost exclusively related to malfeasance and lawsuits. If there was just one incident, like with New England Compounding Center meningitis outbreak, I would say that we should modify the article to be about the event rather than the company. However, there have been at least three separate incidents, so I think it makes more sense to organize the article around the company. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 00:12, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Well now my information is that the business is out-of-business. It's was a tiny compound pharmacy in Armpit, Texas and all the online references to the "controversy" are now gone, as well as the business. The only purpose this article serves is to use Wikipedia as a platform to say something negative about a small business that had an accident that was used by the Federal Government to award a $800 million monopoly to a pharmaceutical company in Japan. Again, no details of the accident, who was involved, any charges that might have been filed, no doctors, no employees, no final disposition of the criminal situation, it doesn't even serve the interests of the Pharmaceutical company. Not even the author of the hatchet job, er- I mean "article" cares enough to maintain it. Where's that Officer Fife FBI dude? He swooped in to prevent any constructive changes, read us all a bunch of Statist, government legalese and then got back in his Crown Victoria and sped-off. Can ANYONE enunciate a reason for maintaining this retarded article's existence?Jonny Quick (talk) 21:23, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

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