Healthy Skepticism Library item: 5878

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

Young J.
Hysteria rules doctor and drug company relationship debate
The Australian Newspaper 2006 Aug 12
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20086019-23289,00.html

Notes:

Ralph Faggotter’s Comments:

“ Advertising certainly helps create awareness of a new medicine, but to
suggest that a patient is going to be inappropriately prescribed a medicine
because the healthcare professional has seen a pen or box of tissues bearing
the name of the product is, frankly, ludicrous. “

If it so ludicrous why do the drug companies work so despartely hard to get these
brand-named pens and tissue boxes onto doctors’ desks?

Full text:

Hysteria rules doctor and drug company relationship debate

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20086019-23289,00.html

OPINION: John Young; August 12, 2006

MEDICINE companies in Australia do not fear scrutiny, nor do we fear
criticism or accountability. Recent coverage of the relationship between
pharmaceutical companies and doctors, however, has bordered on the
hysterical.

It’s time for a more rational and reasoned debate about these important
ethical issues.

It is interesting that the group left out of most recent coverage is the
one upon which we should all be most focused – patients.

This needs to change.

We recognise that the relationship between our industry, doctors and
other healthcare professionals has to be based on trustworthy provision
of balanced information, to enable patients to receive appropriate
treatment. Communicating information about medicines must occur in an
ethical manner that maintains public trust in both doctors and industry.

These principles are embedded in both the Federal Government’s National
Medicines Policy and its Quality Use of Medicines (QUM) policy. We
support both. QUM is woven into our industry’s code of conduct, by which
all member companies must abide.

Since its introduction, the code (now in its 14th edition) has been
constantly strengthened in response to specific suggestions or
criticisms. Reading some of the recent coverage, you might think the
code existed in a vacuum and that none of this review and revision had
occurred.

One group of stories cited a paper in the Internal Medicine Journal
which examined promotional practice prior to 2002, and clearly pre-dated
the latest code revisions.

Examples of inappropriate behaviour that are almost five years old are
no more relevant as a yardstick of current practice than historical
inflation or unemployment numbers are a measure of the state of the
economy in 2006.

Some critics have cited specific examples of behaviour by individual
companies as an illustration that industry self-regulation does not
work. Frankly, this contention is illogical. No one suggests that if a
motorist runs a red light, that the traffic laws don’t work. The purpose
of any regulation is to ensure that it defines what’s acceptable and
provide sanctions for behaviour that is not.

The fact that from time to time individual companies are found to have
breached the code on specific activities is a sign of its success, not
failure. Who would trust a code that no one was ever found to have
breached? Anyone working in our industry knows it has been a catalyst
for significant change. What was acceptable a few years ago is no longer
permissible, and it’s been the member companies that have driven that
process against the background of public opinion.

There are significant penalties of up to $200,000 – for each offence –
in the Medicines Australia Code for companies found to have breached the
code. Just as importantly, complaints are heard by an independent panel
and results are published on the Medicines Australia website. Few other
industries whose products are purchased using government funds have a
code of practice which is as transparent and accountable as Medicines
Australia’s.

It would seem that the heart of the issue for some critics is a belief
that doctors should be the last to know about new treatment options, and
that healthcare professionals cannot be trusted to make the same
judgments that any of us do every day when we see advertising.

Advertising certainly helps create awareness of a new medicine, but to
suggest that a patient is going to be inappropriately prescribed a
medicine because the healthcare professional has seen a pen or box of
tissues bearing the name of the product is, frankly, ludicrous.

Provided that the information our industry provides to healthcare
professionals is balanced (as the code requires) then our industry has
nothing to fear.

The innovative medicines industry is one of very high commercial risk.
Companies invest billions of dollars in research and development, with
the goal of creating medicines to treat and cure chronic conditions and
life-threatening disease.

The private sector develops more than 90 per cent of all new medicines.
Every day our industry invests hundreds of millions of additional
dollars in research and development in the hope of improving the quality
and quantity of life for patients around the world.

Sometimes we succeed, and examples include medicines that have changed
the world, including breakthrough treatments for HIV/AIDS, cancer, heart
disease and diabetes. Unfortunately the development process is, more
often than not, characterised by disappointment.

Of the 15,000 Australians working in the pharmaceutical industry, many
work in research and development. Those working in research and
development help guide their company’s contribution to global clinical
trials, or work with their company’s local partners in the medical
research community.

The pharmaceutical industry is a highly competitive business. It is
competition that underpins our industry’s drive for innovation.

We are proud of the way our medicines improve the lives of patients
around the world. Yet this appears to have been completely forgotten in
the hysteria regarding the relationship between our industry and
healthcare professionals.

Medicines Australia’s member companies are healthcare companies, and our
commitment is also to patients first and foremost. This is no motherhood
statement – it is true. If our industry ceases to research and develop
new medicines which make a meaningful improvement to the lives of
patients, we have no business.

We fundamentally believe that it is in the best interest of patients
that their healthcare professionals are well informed and we will
continue to work with them in a responsible way in order to support
their efforts to achieve the best outcome for their patients.

John Young is chairman of Medicines Australia, representative body for
the pharmaceutical industry, and chairman and managing director of
Pfizer Australia.