Risky Rx: Drug maker's secret strategies
By Robert Bazell
Chief science and health correspondent
NBC News
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14348176/
"We know that physicians meet a parade of drug company sales representatives from their first days of medical school to retirement and that they see drug ads every time they pick up a medical journal.
At least that is represented as the advertising it is.
But a study in this week's issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine provides extensive detail about how drug companies push their products in far more subtle ways.
Some drug makers pay key leaders in a field of medicine, such as chairs of departments in medical schools, tens of thousands of dollars if they are saying the right things about their product. They manipulate medical education sessions, lectures, articles in medical journals, research studies, even personal conversations between physicians to get their product message across.
"It is very disturbing," says lead author Dr. Michael Steinman of the University of California, San Francisco and the San Francisco VA Hospital. "It really does a disservice to patient care."
The more I read on the medical system, the more I become uneasy. Just as long and I don’t get sick or injured, I’ll be fine.
