Healthy Skepticism Library item: 4466

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: news

Pushing drugs to doctors
Consumer Reports 1992 Feb87-94

Abstract:

Over the past 15 years, pharmaceutical companies have made physicians the targets-sometimes willing, sometimes unwitting-of sophisticated, subtle, and highly effective marketing techniques that permeate nearly every aspect of medical practice. Drug companies organize “educational symposia” that are actually disguised promotional efforts for their products. They pay for sober-looking “supplements” to respected medical journals and fill those supplements with articles selected and edited to make their products look good. They pay doctors to use drugs in “clinical trials” organized not by drug researchers but by drug marketers. And they offer doctors all sorts of gifts and perks, from ballpoint pens to lavish banquets and concerts.

Keywords:
*feature story/United States/doctors/ sponsored symposia & conferences/ journal supplements/ gift giving/ drug company sponsored meals and travel/ drug company sponsored research/ FDA/ Food and Drug Administration/ Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (US)/ regulation of promotion/ continuing medical education/ETHICAL ISSUES IN PROMOTION: GIFT GIVING/ETHICAL ISSUES IN PROMOTION: PAYMENT FOR MEALS, ACCOMODATION, TRAVEL, ENTERTAINMENT/PROMOTION DISGUISED: CLINICAL TRIALS/PROMOTION DISGUISED: JOURNAL SUPPLEMENTS, CONTROLLED CIRCULATION JOURNALS AND NEWSLETTERS/PROMOTION DISGUISED: POSTMARKETING RESEARCH/PROMOTION DISGUISED: SUPPORT FOR CME/REGULATION, CODES, GUIDELINES: DIRECT GOVERNMENT REGULATION/SPONSORSHIP: RESEARCH