Healthy Skepticism Library item: 14742

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Blair D.
Pharmaceutical lobbying dangers
Times Colonist 2008 Nov 30
http://www.timescolonist.com/Pharmaceutical+lobbying+dangers/1013966/story.html

Full text:

Re: “Public has little presence in PharmaCare talks,” opinion, Nov. 26.

The article by Alan Cassels was a good outline of the internal struggle to preserve the integrity and viability of our PharmaCare program in the face of intense pharmaceutical industry pressure.

It is ever more critical for prescribers of medications and their patients to have reliable, evidence-based and common sense sources of information. None of those will prevail if the industry has its way with PharmaCare and the process for approving our drug benefits. Their behind-the-scenes struggle to influence decision-making and public policy on prescription drugs is breathtaking in its ferocity, audacity and eventual cost implications. We will all be watching the outcome of this naïve and covert process initiated by the Ministry of Health.

A few pages on in the same paper there was an ad announcing a “Call for Public Members” for the provincial Drug Benefit Council. This must be music to the ears of the pharmaceutical industry. They love public input and “balance” because they are so good at influencing it. The ad says applicants “should not [represent] a specific interest group or organization” but, curiously, “should have an interest in the health care system and related issues.” Do such individuals exist? And if found, can they be protected from the onslaught of attention and pressure they will attract?

Picture this if you are a successful applicant: Suddenly you have many new friends; you find yourself on mailing lists you don’t want; educational opportunities in exotic locations suddenly start appearing; real friends start calling you about people they know with unusual medication issues; trinkets, trips and perks are dangled. Welcome to my world of physicians trying to sort out the good from the bad and make the best decisions for their patients while awash with unreliable information and pharmaceutical industry pressure.

But relax, you as a new public representative will remain fully objective, rely heavily on solid evidence and not be influenced by all of the propaganda, manipulation and subtle gifts coming your way.

Surveys show that most physicians swear their own prescribing is never influenced, but most also feel that their colleagues’ decisions are.

Figure that out.