Healthy Skepticism Library item: 6676

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

Critser G.
Oh, how happy we will be: pills, paradise, and the profits of the drug companies
Harper’s 1996 Jun39-48

Abstract:

(Limited to parts of article dealing with promotion.) According to the Food and Drug Administration, the pharmaceutical industry spends more than $10 billion on promotion every year. Drug companies make up new uses and indications for their products: two examples are SmithKline Beecham and Paxil and Pfizer and its drug Zoloft. FDA deputy commissioner Mary Pendergast said that “promotion of unapproved uses by company sales representatives is a mjaor problem.â€ Upjohn has been caught paying bribes to pharmacists to persuade doctors to switch to new drugs.

Keywords:
*feature story/United States/sales representatives/misinformation/quality of information/ Pfizer/ Paxil/ SmithKline Beecham/ pharmacies and pharmacists/ switch campaigns/Zoloft/promotion costs and volume/EVALUATION OF PROMOTION: DETAILING/EVALUATION OF PROMOTION: GENERAL QUALITY OF INFORMATION/VOLUME OF AND EXPENDITURE ON PROMOTION

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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.