Healthy Skepticism Library item: 358

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

First, Do No Harm
The Wall Street Journal 2004 May 25

Full text:

“As food companies look for ways to cash in on the nation’s obsession with healthy eating, an increasing number are copying marketing tactics that long have been used by the pharmaceuticals industry: They are pitching their products directly to doctors. The hope is that doctors will start recommending specific foods – and even brand names – to patients,” reports the Wall Street Journal.

Fruit juice makers, meat and seafood suppliers, and large companies like Pepsi and General Mills are “pitching” MDs, with some even “rewarding doctors for recommending their products.” The Revival Soy snack company “has sales representatives visit doctors’ offices to drop off samples … [and] pamphlets encouraging doctors to ‘pseudo-prescribe Revival.’” Patients aren’t the only target audience. “Physicians employed by food companies are presenting information at medical conferences,” the Journal reports.