Healthy Skepticism Library item: 6786

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: book

Fried S.
Bitter pills: inside the hazardous world of legal drugs
New York: Bantam Books 1998

Abstract:

(Limited to parts of article dealing with promotion.) Sales representatives were presenting false information about the author’s wife and her serious reaction to an antibiotic when they were visiting health professionals. In the Netherlands, one doctor discussed how a sales representative had owned up to the fact that there were doctors who “get a blank check from the company . . . if they prescribe for their whole practice. Companies always deny they do this sort of thing, but they don’t deny that they put high targets on sales levels.” Another sales representative, in the United States, revealed some of the ways that detailers get around Food and Drug Administration rules about sales materials.

Keywords:
*analysis/United States/Netherlands/sales representatives/doctors/ATTITUDES REGARDING PROMOTION: SALES REPRESENTATIVES/ETHICAL ISSUES IN PROMOTION: PAYMENT FOR MEALS, ACCOMODATION, TRAVEL, ENTERTAINMENT/EVALUATION OF PROMOTION: DETAILING/PROMOTION DISGUISED: DISINFORMATION AND HARASSMENT