Healthy Skepticism Library item: 14803

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: Journal Article

Wollschlaeger B.
Hooked: Ethics, the Medical Profession, and the Pharmaceutical Industry
JAMA 2008 Dec 10; 300:(22):2675
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/300/22/2675

Abstract:

The close relationship between physicians and the pharmaceutical industry represents one of the greatest challenges to medical professionalism. Funding of medical education programs, sophisticated marketing techniques, and direct-to-consumer advertising are just a few, but important, modalities through which drug companies exert significant influence and pressure on physicians’ prescribing habits. In his book Hooked: Ethics, the Medical Profession, and the Pharmaceutical Industry, the author describes the present relationship between the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry, assesses that relationship from the standpoint of ethics and policy, and suggests positive changes.

The densely written book captures one’s attention and reads like a nonfiction thriller. One of the central claims of the book is that a tipping point has been reached in renegotiating the relationship between the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry. Furthermore, physicians will not understand the problem and will not be able to propose helpful solutions unless they see . . .