Healthy Skepticism Library item: 6531

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

What drug companies know
Consumer Reports 1994 Oct631

Abstract:

To support their marketing programs, drug companies are soliciting patient lists from physicians and pharmacists. Thye also compile huge mailing lists through package inserts, mailings, and magazine and television ads that offer information about medications to people who call or write. At least one major mailing-list broker is gather the names of the ill and Metromail has a 15 million-name list of patients that it markets to the pharmaceutical industry.

Keywords:
*news story/United States/DTCA/direct-to-consumer advertising/mailing lists/patients/EVALUATION OF PROMOTION: DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER ADVERTISING/PROMOTIONAL TECHNIQUES: COMPILING PATIENT MAILING LISTS

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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.