Healthy Skepticism Library item: 20029
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: Magazine
McCrory G
Super Bribe Me now showing
Australian Doctor 2004 July 23 31
Full text:
Editor Dr Len Henson is right on the money with his defence of pharmaceutical reps and the PBS (‘Ego overload’, Gut Feelings, 9 July). I agree that drug reps provide a valuable and non-biased source of education for us GPs. So much that I now work part time, devoting two full days to seeing nothing but reps.
I so look forward to the breakfast scones, the supersaturated fats for lunch, and the pastries and chocolate for afternoon tea. I shall shortly be conducting my own experiment, eating nothing but drug rep food for 30 days. The resulting documentary I shall call Super Bribe Me.
The reps provide glossy brochures that feel and smell fresh, the graphs have lots of colours, and most importantly, the rep doesn’t want taxpayer funds wasted on non-cost-effective pills. I am comforted by the knowledge that they have our patient’s best interests at heart, not shareholder profits, which would compromise their position as the linchpin of educators for GPs.
Of course, the rep is not there to influence or coerce me into prescribing a particular product. Not even the good old days of golf-day junkets, riding the dolphins at Sea World, and weekends in five-star luxury hotels with your significant other would affect doctor’s prescribing habits. I assumed these adventures were because the reps were just friendly, ethical and honest folk, here to improve health outcomes. For instance, their full disclosure of trial results that reveal no benefit for their particular product.
Dr Henson is correct in his belief that older pharmaceuticals belong in the dark ages. Take, for example, beta blockers and diuretics. We all know how useless they are in treating heart failure and hypertension. Besides, they don’t cost the tax payer enough. It’s obvious that the more expensive the drug, the better it must be and the more of it we should prescribe.
Further, his assertion that drug companies supply us with the means to treat patients appropriately reveals the insight of a genius. The beauty of these new miracle drugs is that lifestyle and personal responsibility for health are no longer important. I illustrate this by referring to the teletubby with Barrett’s oesophagus to which another of your correspondents, Dr Gavin Nichols, alluded (‘Affordable PBS no panacea’).
Unfortunately, I recently found out that this obese, depressed character had died after an alcoholic binge precipitated a hypertensive crisis, resulting in a fall and a broken hip. Had the teletubby been managed appropriately by his GP, with statins, SSRIs, PPIs, ACE inhibitors and biphosphonates, he would be alive today, continuing his gluttonous, overindulgent lifestyle that has become a role model to our children.
Dr Graham McCrory
Pottsville Beach, NSW
