Thomas A. Scully, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, also criticized AstraZeneca for their aggressive marketing of Nexium.
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At a conference of the American Medical Association, he said that Astra was using the new drug to overcharge consumers and insurance companies.
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Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, spoke at Harvard Medical School to a German magazine on August 16, 2007, and said that AstraZeneca's scientists deceptively doctored their comparative studies such that the difference from omeprazole would look larger, providing a marketing advantage.
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Many noted health professionals, including Dr. Otis Brawley (author of "How We Do Harm: A Doctor Breaks Ranks About Being Sick In America", and currently (as of August 2012) both chief medical officer and executive vice president of the American Cancer Society), have expressed the view that this improvement in efficacy is due to the dose of esomeprazole recommended for therapy rather than any inherent superiority of esomeprazole.