Ourview
Doctors
exchange gifts for drugs
We have all seen them. They have become
just as much a part of our lives as Pepsi
commercials. Prescription drug advertisements
have joined the thousands of images that
manufacture our desire for whatever they
want to sell us.
The
market for prescription drugs is huge. Families
USA, a national nonprofit group dedicated
to providing information about health care,
reported “The ‘research-based’ pharmaceutical
industry spends more on marketing and administration
than it does on research and development.”
This means that prescription drug companies
spend more money on making you feel like
you need their drug than on research to
make their drugs safer or more useful.
Not
only are the pharmaceutical companies targeting
the consumer with their obscure advertising
tactics, but doctors have also been lured
into the companies’ marketing schemes.
A
bill pending in the legislature would force
prescription drug makers who give millions
of dollars worth of gifts each year to doctors
to publicly list the gifts and who took
them for public scrutiny. Any gift from
a pharmaceutical company worth more than
$25 given to doctors, pharmacists, hospital
administrators or anyone authorized to write
a prescription would need to be reported
to the state Board of Pharmacy. Violators
could be fined up to $10,000.
Vermont
has the nation’s only gift disclosure law
for drug manufacturers and Connecticut,
Maryland and Washington are considering
similar laws.
Of
course, the pharmaceutical companies are
fighting this potential glitch in their
marketing machine by complaining that the
“proposed law would force them to disclose
trade secrets.”
Merrill
Jacobs, a lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical
Research and Manufacturers of America, called
the practice of bribing doctors part of
important “confidential marketing strategies.”
It
is one thing to have confidential marketing
strategies when Pepsi is trying to outsell
Coca-Cola, but prescription drug marketing
strategies is a scary prospect. The drugs
that are being offered as fix-all remedies
on television and subversively through our
trustworthy doctors may affect our lives
and our health. This is not simply a preference
issue, it is a life issue. And life is too
precious a thing for pharmaceutical companies
to apply terms like “confidential marketing
strategies” to.
The
Los Angeles Times reported “A March 2002
national survey published by the Henry J.
Kaiser Family Foundation found that 61 percent
of doctors reported having received meals,
tickets to events or free travel from the
drug industry.”
Does
conflict of interest fit anywhere in the
picture here? These companies want to sell
us their drugs, we can’t just go to the
store and buy their drugs, we need a doctor
to recommend a certain type of medication
and then to give us the okay with a prescription.
The doctor is the most important part of
the equation, he or she is the mediator
between the machine and the consumer. It
makes sense on the drug companies’ part
to target the doctor, it makes sense for
us to have access to whom is receiving gifts
from what company.
It
is a sign of the times that our health has
become a viable market and our prescription
choice a commodity. Doctors receiving gifts
should want to show that they have nothing
to hide. Surely they have our best interests
at heart as they enjoy a live Laker’s game
at the drug companies’ expense.
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