Healthy Skepticism Library item: 11824

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Publication type: media release

Thousands of Medical Students Call on Schools to Eliminate Pharmaceutical Marketing Influence
American Medical Student Association 2007 Oct 22
http://www.drugs.com/news/thousands-medical-students-urge-schools-eliminate-pharmaceutical-marketing-influence-7074.html

Full text:

For Immediate Release: October 22, 2007 Kim Becker, Director of Public Relations
American Medical Student Association
Phone: (703) 620-6600, ext. 207
Email: pr@amsa.org

THOUSANDS OF MEDICAL STUDENTS CALL ON SCHOOLS TO ELIMINATE PHARMACEUTICAL MARKETING INFLUENCE

National PharmFree Week Commences Today

Reston, Va. – Thousands of medical students join together this week, National PharmFree Week, calling upon medical schools to eliminate pharmaceutical marketing from their campuses.

National PharmFree Week is sponsored by the American Medical Student Association (AMSA), the nation’s largest, independent medical student organization. Over the course of the week, thousands of future physicians and healthcare leaders will hold events across the country to promote liberation from pharmaceutical company influence. Events include:

Capitol Hill Briefing: AMSA joins the National Physicians’ Alliance and the Prescription Project to lobby on behalf of Senate Bill 2029. The legislation will require disclosure of payments to physicians by the pharmaceutical industry. (Monday, October 22, 2:30 p.m. Location: Senate Room 120, Capitol Building.)

New Policy Announced at UConn: The University of Connecticut Medical Center will announce its new pharmaceutical policy. (Wednesday, October 24, 12 p.m. Location: Onyiuke Dining Room in John Dempsey Hospital.)

FLIP Symposium: The symposium will provide skills to become more critical and evidence-based prescribers. Guest speakers will include several nationally renowned leaders, including The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Editor in Chief Catherine DeAngelis. (Saturday, October 27, University of Illinois at Chicago. Must register online: http://www.uic.edu/com/dom/gim/FLIP/flip_conference_registration.htm.)
About 90 percent of the pharmaceutical industry’s $21 billion marketing budget is directed at physicians, according to JAMA. There are more than 90,000 pharmaceutical representatives that visit U.S. physicians, providing free lunches, gifts, marketing paraphernalia and free medication samples. These enticements are designed to influence doctors to prescribe more drugs and more expensive drugs and have often become a substitute for objective medical evidence.
“These marketing practices, including the growing number of “ask your doctor” commercials, has led to over-medicating of the U.S. population,” says Michael Ehlert, M.D., AMSA national president. “There is substantial evidence that marketing shapes physician prescribing habits. By eradicating pharmaceutical companies from all medical schools, hospitals and academic medical centers, physicians will be able to go back to practicing evidence-based medicine.”

Over the last decade, 70 percent more prescriptions have been written; though the population has only grown by nine percent. By “creating” illnesses, the pharmaceutical industry remains one of the most profitable industries on the Fortune 500.

As marketing to physicians and consumers increases, so does the price of medications. The pharmaceutical industry claims that high priced pharmaceuticals are essential to offset the expense of research and development, yet the number of research jobs has remained virtually the same since 1995, while the marketing staff has increased by more than 50 percent.

“AMSA wants to cure healthcare’s addiction to the pharmaceutical industry and envisions a day when drugs are used because they are effective in treating disease, not because they are successfully marketed,” says Anthony Fleg, AMSA PharmFree coordinator. “Our patients deserve the best care; and that means not prescribing a specific drug because the drug rep was attractive or because the physician’s closet is full of free samples.”

Launched in 2002, AMSA’s PharmFree Campaign encourages medical schools and academic medical centers to develop policies that limit the access of pharmaceutical company representatives to their campuses and prohibit medical students and physicians from accepting gifts of any kind from these representatives. In May 2007, AMSA released its PharmFree Scorecard, which was a first-of-it’s-kind ranking of medical schools according to their pharmaceutical influence policies. Of all the medical schools in the United States, five received a grade of “A,” which translates into comprehensive school policy that restricts pharmaceutical representatives to both the medical school campus and its academic medical centers. Forty schools received an “F” for their lack of policy.

AMSA remains one of the few national organizations to completely reject all pharmaceutical advertisements and sponsorships. National PharmFree Week is supported by The Medical Letter. For more information on the PharmFree Campaign or events during National PharmFree Week, visit www.pharmfree.org.

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About the American Medical Student Association
The American Medical Student Association (AMSA), with more than a half-century history of medical student activism, is the oldest and largest independent association of physicians-in-training in the United States. Founded in 1950, AMSA is a student-governed, non-profit organization committed to representing the concerns of physicians-in-training. With more than 68,000 members, including medical and premedical students, residents and practicing physicians, AMSA is committed to improving medical training as well as advancing the profession of medicine. AMSA focuses on four strategic priorities, including universal healthcare, disparities in medicine, diversity in medicine and transforming the culture of medical education. To learn more about AMSA, our strategic priorities, or joining the organization, please visit us online at http://www.amsa.org/.