Pfizer marketing vice-president Peter Rost was fired on Thursday. Rost rose to prominence as a whistleblower and his public support for free trade in pharmaceuticals. It is reported that Pfizer has given him virtually no responsibilities for the past two years. After appearing on major US television show 60 Minutes, his e-mail and cellphone stopped working, which Pfizer says was not intentional.

Rost told a Committeee of the US Senate earlier this year: “I joined this industry to save lives, not to take them. And that's the reason I've chosen to speak out.” He carefully explained to the Committee that the views expressed were his own and did not reflect those of Pfizer Inc. His subject was “Drug Importation: The Realities of Safety and Security”. At one point during his career, Rost was responsible for an entire region in Europe where he gained personal experience with parallel trade. He observed first-hand how the free market works and thinks the industry is making a huge mistake in opposing drug importation.

In fact, Rost told the committee, that there came a time when he had lots of parallel traded drugs coming into his market in Europe, and admitted, "I was not happy about this." However, in order to compete, Rost dropped his own prices, and by doing so, he said, "I doubled sales and increased my company ranking from No. 19 to No. 7 in less than two years."

Rost advised the committee that every day, "Americans die because they can’t afford lifesaving drugs, because we want to protect the profits of foreign corporations. I believe we have to speak out for the people who can’t afford drugs, in favor of free trade and against a closed market..." Blocking re-importation has a high cost, Rost warned, "Not just in money, but in American lives."