Healthy Skepticism Library item: 103

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

Roner L .
A matter of trust
Eye For Pharma 2004 Feb 3
http://social.eyeforpharma.com/story/matter-trust

Full text:

Trust – at least among Americans and perhaps many of our neighbors around the world – has changed in recent years. Perhaps, we’re all growing smarter – or maybe, as many would say, more paranoid. But whatever the root, we’re less likely to trust others without good reason than ever before. It’s no surprise really. We live in a world too often tainted by crime, lawsuits, swindling, cover-ups and terrorism. It’s hard to know who to trust, so we just don’t – at least not at face value anymore. We don’t trust until given a reason not to as we once did. We trust only after one’s proven themselves worthy of that trust. A reversal from days past – for better or worse.

The world’s corporations are among the most distrusted institutions in our lives today. Again, no surprise really. The news is full of unethical behavior and shady business practices – and that’s only what we know about.

A recent (January 28, 2004) Health Care Poll from Harris Interactive indicates that while many Americans (44%) have a lot of trust in the drugs they take, far fewer (14%) trust the companies that make them.

Why is that? The pharma industry hasn’t been riddled with scandals of the likes of Enron and Worldcom. Why the intense distrust?

I would contend the public trusts the medicines, because they take them and they work. They improve their lives. They trust the science and the safety of the products, because the medicines go to work earning that trust in households across the world each and every day.

It’s the business behind the medicines that feels, to most consumers, much like the unknown that lurks behind the black curtain of the great Wizard of Oz. Let’s face it, we fear and distrust what we cannot see.

Perhaps the industry simply hasn’t revealed enough of its inner workings to adequately earn the public’s trust. What lurks behind the manicured lawns and lights in the windows of pharma campuses is largely a mystery to most of our customers.

There is no easy answer. But maybe it’s a matter of working hard to push the black curtain aside and help the public better understand complicated matters like R&D costs and effort and how that translates to retail drug prices. Perhaps “open houses” and public outreach events would give the communities we live and work in a glimpse of the “inside” of pharma.

It’s time to “demystify” the industry and give consumers a basis for trusting more than our medicines.