Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2520
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
Poses R.
AAFP: No Entry to No Free Lunch
Health Care Renewal ( blogspot ) 2005 Sep 17
http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2005/09/aafp-no-entry-to-no-free-lunch.html
Notes:
Ralph Faggotter’s Comments: The fall-out from the notorious letter from Dr Henley continues.
See also http://www.nofreelunch.org/news.htm and below.
Jerome Hoffman’s Response to Dr Henley:
dear dr henley,
although i am not a member of AAFP — as i am not a family physician — i couldn’t help feeling that it was appropriate to protest this truly outrageous decision. (no more outrageous than the similar actions of the ACP, but that hardly makes it any less awful.) Fast-food and alcohol distributors are “in keeping with the character and purpose of” AAFP, but a group that challenges us to think ethically is not? how revealing…
your excuses about “they want to eliminate …” are so hollow as to be laughable (although hardly funny). of course what NFL says it wants to eliminate is not discussion (quite the contrary) but “the prescribing of expensive, inappropriate medications” — something which would threaten the very marrow of many of your corporate exhibitors, to be sure. of course they suggest that in order to accomplish this, most physicians need to be convinced that taking industry “gifts” is a bad idea. NFL wanted its own opportunity to interact with (“share information with”) family physicians, who would of course then be free to make any choice they wish. it’s rather wonderful that you couch your refusal to allow such open discussion in the name of “information sharing!”
perhaps i’m being too harsh — perhaps you have also banned any exhibitor who claims his or her drug should be used in preference to someone else’s, on the same grounds … if the claim were persuasive enough, this could only lead to eliminating information sharing with the competitor! information about a great new device that cured back pain (wonderful, you might think, but no …) would also have to be banned, because it could ultimately eliminate sharing of information about less effective drugs. i suppose we really do have to explore this more … all sorts of information sharing could actually end up leading to the elimination of other types of information sharing, with who knows what consequences!
your claim that you “welcome applications … from organizations that educate physicians about healthy lifestyle choices …” (like sugar- and caffeine-saturated soft-drinks, no doubt) is equally offensive, since this is precisely what NFL hopes that family physicians will consider — a lifestyle change that is healthy for themselves … and equally healthy for their patients.
finally, you surely can’t imagine that people won’t see through your assertion that this was not done out of concern for the wishes of industry exhibitors who provide so much of AAFP’s revenue. it was hardly done because of objections by AAFP members, was it? quite the contrary, i imagine — perhaps you’d like to take a poll of members, and publish the results? or even publish the numbers of members who’ve written to you on either side of the question? in keeping with your desired goal of information sharing, of course.
the irony of this is that publicity about AAFP’s venal decision will have far more impact than a little booth on the exhibit floor would have done. so i guess your shameful decision can’t be considered all bad, after all.
jerome hoffman, ma md
professor of medicine
ucla
Full text:
September 17, 2005
AAFP: No Entry to No Free Lunch
The organization called No Free Lunch has been campaigning against a variety of pharmaceutical marketing techniques, particularly giving gifts to physicians, from pens to the “free lunch” in the organization’s title.
A report in the trade journal Brandweek.com, and a press release by No Free Lunch, describe how the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) has barred No Free Lunch from exhibiting in the Exposition Hall at the annual AAFP Scientific Assembly.
AAFP Manager of Sales and Services Sharon Hutinett stated that the No Free Lunch exhibit was “not within the character and purpose of the Scientific Assembly.” Moreover, AAFP Executive Vice President Douglas Henley stated, “while the AAFP respects the mission of No Free Lunch, their desire to eliminate information-sharing by exhibitors with our members clearly negates the purpose of the Exposition Hall. Therefore, No Free Lunch is not in keeping with the character and purpose of the Scientific Assembly Exposition Hall and it would not be appropriate for AAFP to accept their exhibit application.”
The character and purpose of the meeting may be indicated by the large number of exhibits sponsored by pharamaceutical companies in the Exposition Hall. Furthermore, No Free Lunch noted that even corporations such as Coca-Cola and McDonalds were allowed to exhibit. Brandweek.com characterized the character and purpose of the AAFP meeting as “a truly massive marketing event: 5,000 of the top-prescribing physicians in the country are expected to attend the San Francisco shindig.”
An AAFP prospectus listed the variety of marketing opportunities for sale, from a “freebie” in every doctor’s “gift bags” for $7500 “per piece per day,” to, of course, free lunch, “$60,500 pays for the food vouchers that physician-attendees will use for lunch each day at the conference.”
So although the AAFP is happy to expose their physician members to a “truly massive marketing event,” AAFP leadership apparently cannot tolerate the dissent provided by a single No Free Lunch exhibit.
How such suppression of honest difference of opinions serves the AAFP’s mission, “to improve the health of patients, families, and communities by serving the needs of members with professionalism and creativity,” is beyond me. Whether the AAFP’s membership condone such censorship, or even know that it is going on, are also open questions.
posted by Roy M. Poses MD at 7:46 PM
