The goal of providers is to prescribe the most appropriate medication for patients. The goal of industry is to make sure that the medication prescribed is their product, whether or not it’s the optimal choice. Most of the clinicians getting information from pharmaceutical industry representatives consider themselves immune to their influence.
But the CEOs of these businesses are neither philanthropists nor stupid. The pharmaceutical industry conducts outcome studies on their advertising campaigns just as they do on their medications. Marcia Angell, former NEJM editor, commented, “Although it is self-evidently absurd for medical professionals to look to an investor-owned company for an impartial, critical evaluation of its own products, there is ample evidence that marketing masquerading as education does increase the use of a drug.”[i]
Woody Allen relates the story of a man who tells his psychiatrist that his brother thinks he is a chicken. “What does he say when you tell him he is not?” the doctor inquires. The man replies- “We don’t---we like the eggs.” This is not unlike the attitude of healthcare providers towards the pharmaceutical industry.
Our greatest concern is not the marketing practices of the pharmaceutical industry nor the lobbying for them done by the pharmaceutical (drug) representatives doing their jobs. .
The question that we care most about is how to educate/convince the health care community (physicians, pharmacist, nurse practitioners, physician assistants) that their prescribing practices are being influenced by pharmaceutical marketing.
How can we convince our colleagues that the cost of those free “eggs” is just too high?
Signed:
Dr. Pesky
Dr. Pesky
