Healthy Skepticism Library item: 10112

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

Vance E.
Medical Students' Group Gives 40 Schools an F on Policies Regarding Access by Drug Companies
The Chronicle of Higher Education 2007 May 11
http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=ch6YDwsWcgHjxp6qSBxGv52M6fvkptxq

Full text:

A majority of medical schools have no policies in place to prevent pharmaceutical companies from marketing drugs directly to students, according to a report released on Thursday by an advocacy group representing medical students from around the country.

For its “2007 PharmFree Scorecard,” the group, the American Medical Student Association, assigned medical schools a grade based on whether they had either initiated policies to prevent pharmaceutical companies from marketing on their campuses or were discussing establishing such a policy. Of the 117 schools that responded, only 14 received an A or B, and 40 received an F, meaning they neither had such a policy nor were discussing adopting one, or they actively encouraged students to interact with industry representatives.

“What we’re calling out, and what we’re upset with, are the marketing practices of the pharmaceutical industry,” Jay D. Bhatt, president of the association, said in an interview. “Ninety thousand sales reps that spend $25-billion a year — they don’t spend that kind of money for nothing,” he said, referring to the amount that industry has been reported to devote to marketing to physicians alone.

Like most of the group’s 68,000 members, Mr. Bhatt is a medical student, though he took a year off from his studies to serve the association. He said students should rely on independent reviews of drugs rather than slick presentations from attractive sales representatives offering free pizza.

Eugene A. Carbona Jr. is the executive director of sales for a nonprofit organization that publishes such independent drug reviews in its newsletter The Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics. He is also a former pharmaceutical representative, and he says that even a simple free meal for a student carries a quid pro quo.

“Just like Derek Jeter shouldn’t be buying dinner for the umpire behind home plate,” Mr. Carbona said, “a little old lady who has diabetes and arthritis should not be put on a medication by a physician because a physician has a relationship with a drug rep that just bought him lunch.”

The association did not evaluate the merits of one policy versus another but simply contacted each school and asked if one was in place. Forty schools failed to respond.

One of the schools to get an F was the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. Donna D. Elliot, an associate dean for the school, acknowledged that the pharmaceutical industry’s practice of marketing drugs directly to students was problematic but said the grade given to Keck was unfair. She said the school probably deserved a C, since it is in serious discussions over the issue and may have an official policy in place next year.

A spokeswoman from the Georgetown University School of Medicine, another school characterized as failing, said drug company representatives’ visits are handled on a case-by-case basis. She said the grade was not representative of the school’s status on that issue but declined to offer a more appropriate grade.