Healthy Skepticism Library item: 4162

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

Wolfe SM.
Testimony, hearing on promotional practices in the pharmaceutical industry
1990 Dec 11

Abstract:

Wolfe describes a number of unacceptable promotional practices including: frequent flyer points for doctors who prescribe a certain volume of a product; bribing doctors with $1200 in cash to prescribe expensive antibiotics; kickbacks for vaccines; giving doctors $100 bribes to use a toxic drug for an unapproved indication; giving doctors a $35000 office computer system; wining and dining doctors. Wolfe advocates more enforcement by the Food and Drug Administration of existing laws and the passage of new laws.

Keywords:
*analysis/United States/gift giving/regulation of promotion/FDA/Food and Drug Administration/ETHICAL ISSUES IN PROMOTION: GIFT GIVING/ETHICAL ISSUES IN PROMOTION: PAYMENT FOR MEALS, ACCOMODATION, TRAVEL, ENTERTAINMENT/REGULATION, CODES, GUIDELINES: DIRECT GOVERNMENT REGULATION

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...to influence multinational corporations effectively, the efforts of governments will have to be complemented by others, notably the many voluntary organisations that have shown they can effectively represent societyâ€™s public-health interestsâ€¦
A small group known as Healthy Skepticism; formerly the Medical Lobby for Appropriate Marketing) has consistently and insistently drawn the attention of producers to promotional malpractice, calling for (and often securing) correction. These organisations [Healthy Skepticism, MÃ©decins Sans FrontiÃ¨res and Health Action International] are small, but they are capable; they bear malice towards no one, and they are inscrutably honest. If industry is indeed persuaded to face up to its social responsibilities in the coming years it may well be because of these associations and others like them.
- Dukes MN. Accountability of the pharmaceutical industry. Lancet. 2002 Nov 23; 360(9346)1682-4.