Healthy Skepticism Library item: 8155

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

Lenzer J.
Telling the inside story?
BMJ 2007 Feb 3; 334:(7587):261
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/334/7587/261

Abstract:

A sacked drug company executive claims to spill the beans on the industry in a new book

Peter Rost, erstwhile drug company executive, self proclaimed whistleblower, and now book author, first became a cause célèbre in August 2004 when he wrote an endorsement of The Truth about the Drug Companies, the book by former New England Journal of Medicine editor Marcia Angell. He posted a commentary on Amazon.com, saying, “I should start with a disclaimer. I’m a vice president within one of the largest drug companies in the world and I have spent close to 20 years marketing drugs. So I guess I’m not supposed to like this book. But the truth is I thought it was fantastic.”

Rost’s posting was picked up by the media and he became a much sought after guest on television and radio shows. He took up the cause of drug reimportation, a practice that would allow foreign drug companies to sell drugs in the United States. Reimportation, argued Rost, is widely . . .