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Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19447

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

Kassirer JP
Keeping big pharma in check?
BMJ 2011 Mar 10; 342:
http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d1103.extract


Abstract:

This comprehensive, authoritative, and insightful history of the US Food and Drug Administration enables a reader to understand how the FDA garnered power over one of the most powerful industries in the world; the myriad forces that have influenced FDA decisions; and the social and political factors that shaped the FDA and those that continually buffet it. The story of the FDA is a tale of gradual accretion of authority, influenced from time to time by legislation, and punctuated not only by occasional national drug disasters but also by some almost calamitous near misses.

The book is a lesson on the numerous constituencies upon which a government agency relies to preserve and maintain its reputation. It is an impressive and moving story about government employees who have served the public well by approving drugs with proved efficacy and safety, basing decisions on solid science, often under criticism from industry, legislators, academics, professional societies, disease based organisations, and patients.

But it is also a story of how science and a reputation based on rigorous scientific conduct is not necessarily sufficient to sustain an …

 

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As an advertising man, I can assure you that advertising which does not work does not continue to run. If experience did not show beyond doubt that the great majority of doctors are splendidly responsive to current [prescription drug] advertising, new techniques would be devised in short order. And if, indeed, candor, accuracy, scientific completeness, and a permanent ban on cartoons came to be essential for the successful promotion of [prescription] drugs, advertising would have no choice but to comply.
- Pierre R. Garai (advertising executive) 1963