Healthy Skepticism Library item: 20165

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Magazine

Mortimer D
Patients putting GPs under fat pressure
Medical Observer 1998 Aug 712

Full text:

Half the GPs in New Zealand who prescribe the ‘fat-busting’ drug Xenical do so because of patient pressure, a pharmaceutical company survey has revealed.

The survey, conducted by Roche, found that 65% of New Zealand GPs were prescribing Xenical with about half doing so because patients demanded it.

But, should the anti-obesity medication be released here, Australian GPs were unlikely to yield to such pressure, RACGP president Dr Peter Joseph said.

“Our biggest problem is with people who come in requesting specific opioids or psycho-active drugs. Wise, considered but firm advice is needed to deal with all these problems and you just hope that GPs have the education and the maturity to [handle] these people appropriately”, Dr Joseph said.

AMA director of health services Dr Harry Nespolon also said Australian GPs are quite able to resist patient pressure for drugs.

“GPs should be patient advocates, not just a human script pad, and they should be able to acknowledge why the patient wants a medication, then work out whether or not that it the most appropriate treatment,” Dr Nespolon said.

“It is a basic part of being a general practitioner. Doctors are regularly asked about opiates and prescribing them the vast majority of doctors have techniques to deal with that problem”, he said.