Healthy Skepticism Library item: 9410

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

Avorn J.
Paying for Drug Approvals — Who's Using Whom?
NEJM 2007 Apr 26; 356:(17):1697-1700
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/reprint/NEJMp078041v1.pdf

Abstract:

Years ago, an administrator at a community hospital explained to me how well his institution’s grand-rounds program worked. “The drug companies find the speakers, pay their honoraria, and provide free food for the doctors, which helps a lot with attendance,” he said. “It works well for us, especially with our budgets so tight.” Yet those lunches were actually quite costly for the hospital: attendees at such events predictably go on to prescribe the products promoted there – which is precisely why the drug companies so willingly pay for these programs.

This penetration of commerce into the province of science isn’t limited to continuing medical education. Since 1992, the United States has relied heavily on the pharmaceutical industry to pay the salaries of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) scientists who review new drug applications. The Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) is now up for its periodic 5-year renewal, and Congress seems ready to reauthorize it with the same short-sightedness that afflicted that naive hospital administrator…

Notes:

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