Healthy Skepticism Library item: 3052

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

Yudkin JS.
The economics of pharmaceutical supply in Tanzania.
Int J Health Serv 1980; 10:(3):455-77

Abstract:

This paper analyzes the patterns of purchasing, distribution, and utilization of pharmaceuticals currently found in Tanzania, an underdeveloped country in Africa. Like other nations in the Third World, Tanzania offers the prospect of a rapidly expanding market for the multinational pharmaceutical industry. However, this market has been to a large extent developed by intense promotional activities of the drug companies themselves. In addition to normal marketing methods, these companies indulge in techniques which would be neither acceptable nor legal in developed countries. As a result, expensive proprietary drugs are overpurchased and overprescribed, mainly in the large urban hospitals, wiht consequent deprivation of other health care facilities, particularly those for the rural peasants who form the majority of the population. The activities of the multinational pharmaceutical companies in the Third World are therefore an important component in the continuing underdevelopment of health in these nations.

Keywords:
*analysis/Tanzania/developing countries/sales representatives/promotion costs and volume/drug samples/ drug names/ hospitals/ gift giving/ safety & risk information/ dipyrone/hormone pregnancy tests/ETHICAL ISSUES IN PROMOTION: DRUG NAME/ETHICAL ISSUES IN PROMOTION: GIFT GIVING/EVALUATION OF PROMOTION: DETAILING/EVALUATION OF PROMOTION: SAMPLES/INFLUENCE OF PROMOTION: ACCESS TO ESSENTIAL DRUGS/INFLUENCE OF PROMOTION: FORMULARY INCLUSION/PROMOTION AND HEALTH NEEDS: PROMOTION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES/VOLUME OF AND EXPENDITURE ON PROMOTION Advertising Delivery of Health Care Drug Industry Drug Utilization/economics Economics Government Agencies Pharmaceutical Preparations/supply & distribution* State Medicine Tanzania