Healthy Skepticism Library item: 4063
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
Greenberg DS.
All expenses paid, Doctor.
Lancet 1990 Dec 22-29; 336:(8730):1568-9
Abstract:
Congressional hearings in Washington were told about excesses in drug promotion by a variety of witnesses. Tactics used by the pharmaceutical industry included: gifts, paying for attendance at holiday resorts, ghost writing articles, paying for attendance at operas and then offering credits for medical education for those who attended, paying doctors who entered patients in bogus trials, paying for computer systems for doctors and offering to put pharmacists on “advisory boards†because of their purchasing authority. Shortly before the hearings started the American Medical Association adopted a code entitled Guidelines for Gifts from Industry to Physicians and the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association copied the AMA and issued its own Code of Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices. The principles of these codes are sound but the rules, unaccompanied by disclosure requirements or penalties are merely advisory and their effectiveness is open to doubt.
Keywords:
*news story/United States/gift giving/drug company sponsored research/continuing medical education/ghost writing/relationship between medical profession and industry/regulation of promotion/American Medical Association/AMA/Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (US)/Guidelines for Gifts from Industry to Physicians (AMA)/Code of Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices (US)/PROMOTION DISGUISED: APPOINTMENTS AND RETAINERS
Advertising
American Medical Association
Codes of Ethics
Conflict of Interest*
Drug Industry*
Economics*
Ethics, Medical
Ethics, Professional
Federal Government
Fees and Charges
Government
Government Regulation
Humans
Motivation*
Patient Care
Pharmaceutical Preparations*
Physicians*
Professional Misconduct*
Reference Standards
Social Control, Formal*
Social Control, Informal*
Societies
United States
