Pharmaceutical Payola -- Drug Marketing to Doctors

[marmar]

from HuffPost:




Robert Weissman
Pharmaceutical Payola -- Drug Marketing to Doctors
Posted May 16, 2008 | 03:50 PM (EST)





Last week, a Congressional committee properly raked Big Pharma over the coals for misleading advertising of pharmaceuticals.

A hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight subcommittee focused on advertising campaigns for three drugs, including the remarkable case of Robert Jarvik. Jarvik is featured in endlessly re-run ads for Pfizer's blockbuster cholesterol drug Lipitor. Known as the inventor of the Jarvik artificial heart, he is not a cardiologist, not a licensed medical doctor and not authorized to prescribe pharmaceuticals. He's shown in the ads engaged in vigorous rowing activity, but in fact he doesn't row. Pfizer pulled the ads in February after controversy started brewing.

Among industrialized countries, only the United States and New Zealand permit drug companies to market directly to consumers. It's a bad idea, it drives bad medicine, and it should be banned.

But although it has the highest profile, direct-to-consumer advertising is a small part of Pharma's marketing machine.

Researchers Marc-André Gagnon and Joel Lexchin conclude in a recent issue of the journal PLOS Medicine that direct-to-consumer ads make up less than a tenth of industry marketing expenditures ($4 billion of $57.5 billion in 2004). And Gagnon and Lexchin's estimate of $57.5 billion on marketing excludes many industry expenditures that are really driven by marketing, including clinical trials conducted for marketing purposes.

The bulk of the industry marketing effort -- more than 70 percent by Gagnon and Lexchin's calculation -- is directed at doctors.

Why?

Because it works. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-weissman/pharmaceutical-payola_b_102160.html

[cbayer]

1. It absolutely works, even though a lot of physicians say it does not influence them.

They start with medical students and ramp it up with residents then with doctors in practice.

There is a great organization (No Free Lunch) that tries to get physicians to stop taking gifts from the industry. Interesting reading at:

http://www.nofreelunch.org/

[nashville_brook]

2. use the NO FREE LUNCH directory of providers to find docs who don't take payola!

http://nofreelunch.org/doctors.asp