Healthy Skepticism Library item: 13748

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: Journal Article

Niebyl JR.
The pharmaceutical industry: friend or foe?
Am J Obstet Gynecol 2008 Apr; 198:(4):435-9
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0002-9378(07)02228-4

Abstract:

…In this address I intend to show you the degree to which the drug industry is profit motivated and ultimately responsible to shareholders. However, we, as physicians, have primary responsibility to our patients. I want to remind you that drug representatives are sales people, not educators. They live by quotas and they track the prescribing habits of physicians to whom they market their drugs. Gifts, meals, samples, seminars, and advertising all influence our prescribing habits. In addition, I will briefly mention some issues about the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It is paid by the pharmaceutical industry to approve drugs and has limited resources for postmarketing supervision of companies with regard to misleading advertising, or side effects of drugs discovered after FDA approval.

Drug representatives may find speakers, pay speakers, bring lunch, and bring gifts and samples. All of these behaviors influence physician prescribing and drive up the drug costs for hospitals and patients. That is, of course, why the drug companies pay for them.

Industry responds by pointing out that prescription drugs are expensive because they are valuable, and that they have large research and development costs. Indeed, drugs may enhance quality of life and lengthen life, and marketing may sometimes influence physicians to prescribe otherwise underprescribed drugs. However, the costs of drugs in this country are significantly increased because of the large marketing budget and profit margin of the drug industry…

Keywords:
Publication Types: Addresses Editorial MeSH Terms: Advertising as Topic Conflict of Interest Drug Approval Drug Industry/economics* Gift Giving Humans Marketing of Health Services Physician's Practice Patterns* Physician's Role* United States United States Food and Drug Administration