Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2873

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

Hargraves R.
Introduction
Journal of Drug Issues 1976; 6:1-5

Abstract:

Although journal advertising has improved in recent years there are still significant problems. There is an absence of consensus concerning the proper role of drug promotion. Although the American Medical Association staunchly voices complete independence from the pharmaceutical industry recent documents suggest otherwise. In 1974, $9.5 million of the AMA’s $34.7 million budget come from advertising, the major portion being paid for by drug companies. The major form of promotion is detailing-67% of the promotional budget is spent on this activity versus 22% on journal advertising. Detailing remains an almost totally unregulated activity. While the misuse of proprietary medicines presents less serious medical consequences than the misuse of prescription drugs, the advertising of such products is aimed at a larger, less well-informed audience. Although the National Association of Broadcasters now has a set of self-regulatory guidelines for promotion of over-the-counter drugs they do not go far enough.

Keywords:
*analysis/United States/ad revenue/ relationship between medical profession and industry/ American Medical Association/ AMA/ ad revenue/ regulation of promotion/ sales representatives/ journal advertisements/ direct-to-consumer advertising/ guidelines, discussion of/ATTITUDES REGARDING PROMOTION: CONSUMERS/PATIENTS/ETHICAL ISSUES IN PROMOTION: LINKS BETWEEN HEALTH PROFESSIONALS AND INDUSTRY/EVALUATION OF PROMOTION: DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER ADVERTISING/INFLUENCE OF PROMOTION: PRESCRIBING, DRUG USE/PROMOTION IN SPECIFIC THERAPEUTIC AREAS: OTC MEDICATIONS/PROMOTIONAL TECHNIQUES: DETAILING/PROMOTIONAL TECHNIQUES: JOURNAL ADVERTISEMENTS/REGULATION, CODES, GUIDELINES: INDUSTRY SELF-REGULATION/SPONSORSHIP: HEALTH PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

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Far too large a section of the treatment of disease is to-day controlled by the big manufacturing pharmacists, who have enslaved us in a plausible pseudo-science...
The blind faith which some men have in medicines illustrates too often the greatest of all human capacities - the capacity for self deception...
Some one will say, Is this all your science has to tell us? Is this the outcome of decades of good clinical work, of patient study of the disease, of anxious trial in such good faith of so many drugs? Give us back the childlike trust of the fathers in antimony and in the lancet rather than this cold nihilism. Not at all! Let us accept the truth, however unpleasant it may be, and with the death rate staring us in the face, let us not be deceived with vain fancies...
we need a stern, iconoclastic spirit which leads, not to nihilism, but to an active skepticism - not the passive skepticism, born of despair, but the active skepticism born of a knowledge that recognizes its limitations and knows full well that only in this attitude of mind can true progress be made.
- William Osler 1909