Doctors not immune to sales pitches

[Bernard]

This is an interesting article although I doubt many here will find it entirely surprising:

Attorneys general from states across the country last week announced the awarding of $9 million of grants ``to educate health care professionals about pharmaceutical industry marketing practices and provide strategies for accessing unbiased sources of information about drugs.''

The $9 million is part of a $430 million fine paid by Pfizer -- Warner-Lambert's parent company -- after Pfizer pleaded guilty in 2004 to illegally marketing Neurontin.

http*//www.contracostatimes.com/mld/ohio/news/14359884.htm?source=rss&channel=ohio_news - Doctors not immune to sales pitches

[Birdbomb]

Why stop at big pharma? I can think of a few medical implant companies that use the same tatics as big pharma to push their product.

It takes severe injurys/deaths just to get labels changed once meds have been given the OK from the FDA. Just look at the VNS. The electrodes can't be removed ( at the very least not safely ), and they have a "black box" warning, yet the company STILL tells patients that if it doen't work they can always have it removed.

The truth in advertising had stopped on the medical level a very long time ago.

[ellgee]

You should see how the drug reps stalk the residents. This salsespush happens early on, you wouldn't beleive the trips and non medically related kick backs there are out there. Season passes for your favorite sport?

And who said there isn't such thing as free lunch?

[Bernard]

Well, I suppose the one good thing about the pharma salesmen is that most doctors get a steady supply of free samples to give to their economically challenged patients (who have difficulty purchasing necessary medications).

[Birdbomb]

That's a double edged sword, Bernard. All the free samples won't do a lick of good if it doesn't do what the company claims or the medication does more harm than good.

[Bernard]

That's true for sure, and I'm sure that the free samples are more than offset by sales from unnecessary prescriptions, but they (free samples) do benefit some people.

[Birdbomb]

My HCP is TriWest and I use the USAF facitities. I have yet to get the sample packets. Even when I go to a doc off base I have yet to recieve them. I guess they don't like us miilitay folks much.

TriWest pays 100% for my scripts if I fill them on the base but I prefer to use Walgreens, they are much faster, less errors and the co-pay is only $9 for my dilantin (because it's name brand.

[Bernard]

It helps if you ask the docs/nurses if they have any free samples every time you visit the office. In my experience, they usually only give them out to patients who ask (or who are known to be financially challenged).

[Bernard]

But prosecutors say that Dr. Gleason went too far. At hundreds of speeches and seminars where he was rewarded with generous fees, Dr. Gleason advised other physicians that a powerful drug for narcolepsy could be prescribed for depression and pain relief. In doing so, he conspired with the drug’s manufacturer to recommend it for potentially dangerous uses, the prosecutors claim.

The case has put the spotlight on the murky financial relationships between drug companies and the physicians they use to promote their medicines. Companies cannot directly advertise drugs for purposes not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. But getting drugs prescribed for unapproved uses can increase a drug’s sales, so companies often skirt the rules by sponsoring seminars where doctors are paid to make presentations promoting their drugs, including the “off label” uses.

...

F.D.A. rules allow doctors to prescribe federally approved drugs for any purpose, even if it is not indicated on the medicine’s label. But drug companies are tightly constrained in what they can say about their medicines. Companies can promote drugs only for their federally approved purposes — their so-called “on label” use.

“Off label” promotion by drug companies is illegal, and since 2000 drug makers have paid large fines to settle federal criminal cases over off-label prescriptions.

Pfizer, for example, paid $430 million in 2004 to settle allegations that it had promoted Neurontin, an anti-epilepsy medicine, for pain and bipolar disorder.

Despite the F.D.A.’s constraints on drug makers, though, the companies are allowed to hire independent doctors to talk to other physicians about their medicines. Companies can also sponsor “continuing medical education” sessions, ranging from lunches to weeklong conferences, where specialist doctors tell other physicians about the latest developments in their fields — including off-label uses for drugs already on the market. For such speaking engagements, doctors can receive $3,000 or more a day from the companies.

The American Medical Association considers continuing-education sessions valuable and believes that doctors should be free to prescribe drugs for off-label use, according to Dr. Edward Langston, a member of the A.M.A. board.

In general, though, he said, the A.M.A. believes doctors should rely on peer-reviewed research, not anecdotal evidence, when they write off-label prescriptions.

The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, which oversees the groups that create medical education sessions, loosened its rules in 2004 so that speakers would not have to disclose whether a recommended use is on-label or off-label, said Dr. Murray Kopelow, the council’s chief executive.

“The A.C.C.M.E. abandoned the distinction between off-label and on-label,’’ Dr. Kopelow said. Instead speakers should make recommendations based on accepted medical and scientific evidence, he added.

Indictment of Doctor Tests Drug Marketing Rules

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