Healthy Skepticism Library item: 13908

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

Ji-sook B.
Doctors, Pfizer in 'Suspcious' Sponsorship Deal
The Korea Times 2008 Jul 1
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/07/117_26849.html

Full text:

The Korean Medical Association, the nation’s largest group of doctors, is under fire for allegedly receiving sponsorship from a pharmaceutical company for its no-smoking campaign. The association is blamed for trying to take a free ride without mentioning the sponsor while the company is accused of trying to gain publicity for its product that may not be advertised.

According to Yonhap News, multi-national drug maker Pfizer producing smoking treatment Champix has been financing online, television and print commercials for the KMA’s ``Quit Smoking’‘ campaign. However, there is no sign of its name in the ads.

In the aired ads, foreign males hold a lollipop, sausage and celery stick instead of a cigarette, saying ``I finally made it with my doctor. He has all the bits’‘ with the telephone number of KMA’s free hotline running underneath. In the video or print ads, there was no mention of the campaign being sponsored by anybody else.

Commenting on the reports, both Pfizer and KMA reluctantly admitted to the deal they made. A KMA spokesman said, ``the key point about the campaign was to show that overcoming nicotine requires professional help. Pfizer was positive about the message and came to sponsor it. However, it was a public campaign, so we thought not mentioning a commercial organization’s name would be appropriate.’‘

Still, the fact that Pfizer’s Champix is not only a prescription medicine banned from commercial promotion but also has alleged side effects including suicide impulses is amplifying suspicions that the company was trying to use the sponsorship as leverage to influence doctors to prescribe their product. This January, the American Food and Drug Administration issued a warning against the drug maker after a suicide likely influenced by the drug occurred.

Officials from pharmaceutical firms said the deal is quite suspicious. ``Since smoking patches, gum, candy or even substitute cigarettes can be bought without prescription anywhere, the campaign urging smokers to consult doctors to effectively quit smoking actually means to buy Champix through doctors,’‘ an official from a pharmaceutical firm said, declining to be named.

Drug makers’ offering money to doctors or pharmacists have long been criticized, but the so-called rebate still exists and there is no effective way to regulate it, experts say. Last year, the Fair Trade Commission cracked down on pharmaceutical companies’ rebates to large hospitals and academies but has yet announced the results due to ``sensitivity’‘ issues.