Healthy Skepticism Library item: 17021

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

Huddle TS
The Pitfalls of Deducing Ethics From Behavioral Economics: Why the Association of American Medical Colleges Is Wrong About Pharmaceutical Detailing
The American Journal of Bioethics 2010 Jan; 10:(1):1 - 8
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a918536695~db=all~jumptype=rss

Abstract:

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) is urging academic medical centers to ban pharmaceutical detailing. This policy followed from a consideration of behavioral and neuroeconomics research. I argue that this research did not warrant the conclusions drawn from it. Pharmaceutical detailing carries risks of cognitive error for physicians, as do other forms of information exchange. Physicians may overcome such risks; those determined to do so may ethically engage in pharmaceutical detailing. Whether or not they should do so is a prudential judgment about which reasonable people may disagree. The AAMC’s ethical condemnation of detailing is unwarranted and will subvert efforts to maintain a realm of physician discretion in clinical work that is increasingly threatened in our present practice environment.