Art Caplan on the New PHRMA Statement on Gifts: Nonsense on Stilts

The movement, begun at Penn, to restrict access to sales representatives and gift-giving behavior on academic health center campuses and facilities has triggered a surprising response from PHARMA. Basically they are arguing that a well-trained sales force has a key role to play in educating physicians about drugs and devices and that sometimes this can and should involve free meals.

I disagree. Sales reps do not have the background or the training to provide sound advice to physicians. They have a background in marketing and selling products--the science of which I would doubt they understand in any real way. I am surprised to see this unconvincing rationale come forward and hope that it will be a tiny speed bump in the effort to minimize the influence of marketing and sales people at academic medical centers, hospitals, and doctor's offices.
- Art Caplan

Erectile Dysfunction Broadens the Market Even More

Who's next in the Viagra marketing campaign? Kids? Maybe. The Viagra and Levitra ads are targeting mid-20s men. While there is much controversy about ads portraying 40 year-old men as devils to sell the notion that Viagra makes you, well, more aggressive, the big story (in Miami anyway) is the shift to this younger population. No doubt the same group of young men will want to have a three-day sex pass as well, so look for ads for Cialis soon! Ken Goodman is quoted.

Judy Illes Blows Lid on Inaccurate Marketing of "Body Scans"

Judy Illes of Stanford has authored a piece from an analysis of the content of company brochures selling body scans, sometimes called "full-body preventative scans" and conducted with CT or MRI. In their review they found that there were all sorts of horrific exaggerations and some awfully intense sales tactics. Illes and colleagues had argued in 2003 that there are insufficient standards and guidelines for scanning, and that the industry has grown very rapidly. The piece is in the 12/13 issue of Annals (thanks for the correction!).

How Powerful are Drug Ads? Ask Hormone Replacement Therapy Manufacturers

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on hormone replacement therapy rates today, based on an embargoed article in a Women's Health Initiative research project. The bottom line is that after the July 2002 shutdown of estrogen plus progestin therapy in WHI, due to results showing that standard-dose Prempro increase the risk of all sorts of things, and provided no benefit, promotional activities for hormone replacement therapy slowed dramatically across the board. The impact of the slowdown in promotion is incredible - a massive drop in prescriptions and use of all HRT, in direct correlation to spending on advertisements. No, drug ads don't matter a lot at all. Nope. Trust us ...

The Great Pharma Market Collapse

Merck lost 27% in a day on news about Vioxx after holding out on the matter for some time. It will be interesting to follow how the issue is spun in the marketplace, specifically whether these lapses are characterized by either bioethicists or market analysts as a failure either of the health system or of organizational bioethics.