Re: The Huffington Post - Cheerleaders, Your Doctor and Big Brother

[Guest guest]

Your post reminded me of this

When Your Doctor Goes to the Beach, You May Get Burned By ABIGAIL ZUGER, M.D.http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/24/health/policy/24ESSA.html

doctor I know maintains a fairly typical relationship with the pharmaceutical industry.

He deplores its influence on medical practice and worries that his colleagues' prescribing habits are increasingly swayed by omnipresent drug advertisements and sales agents pumping new products.

Regarding his own independence and integrity, though, my friend has no doubts. He feels that, as a man of science, he is trained to recognize an advertisement when he sees one, and to file it away in that corner of his brain reserved for potentially biased information.

The facts stored there have no influence on his professional judgment, he believes.

In fact, he says, it amuses him to take advantage of everything the drug companies have to offer -- the free pens and flashlights, the free lunches, the expensive dinners, the occasional all-expense-paid jaunt to a balmy resort to participate in a focus group and depart with a generous check.

He shrugs.

"I need the money," he says. If the drug companies are naïve enough to imagine that their largess will buy his loyalty, then so be it -- it is their gamble, and their loss.

In fact, he points out that if a 21st century doctor is too principled to participate in pharmaceutical-sponsored education, that doctor winds up without much education at all, since so much of it is now financed by industry.

Studies show that most doctors feel the way my friend does, and not only the ones who are hard up for cash. Travel to any medical meeting and you will see the most eminent medical minds in the country taking full advantage of pharmaceutical generosity.

Some just sip the odd cup of free cappuccino, while others bed down in free hotel suites. Some influential specialists make a point of accepting consultant fees and gifts from as many companies as possible, to emphasize their impartiality. On surveys, almost all doctors affirm that their clinical judgment is unaffected by such activities.

But the pharmaceutical industry is not known for its naïveté, and is unlikely to continue providing their treats without getting something big in return.

Relatively few researchers have investigated the question of exactly what that something big is. Among other considerations, it is one of the few research topics in medicine that will not attract drug company financing.

A handful of studies have looked at the common practice of giving doctors free drug samples and have shown that it unquestionably induces them to prescribe drugs they would otherwise avoid. The other gifts also appear to bring a nice return. In one clever 1992 study published in the journal Chest, Cleveland researchers surreptitiously tracked doctors' use of two drugs before and after all-expense paid educational jaunts to sunny resorts. They found that drug prescriptions more than tripled, an effect that persisted for more than a year, while the use of equivalent drugs remained stable.

It is all quite deplorable, my friend says. He used to add routinely that none of this data was applicable to him, but a recent series of events may have changed his mind.

A new AIDS drug was introduced into the marketplace a while ago, with some interesting features that set it apart from older drugs. For one thing, it was a new class of drug whose potency was not altogether certain; for another, it was a long-acting drug that could be taken once a day -- a wonderful and liberating detail for patients otherwise tethered to a twice- or thrice-daily schedule.

The drug was released into the marketplace with a minimum of published information on its success in patients -- not an unusual occurrence in these days of rapid drug approvals. The pharmaceutical company's representatives outdid themselves, introducing their new product with lunches, dinners and far-flung focus groups.

My friend, a little skeptical of the drug, took full advantage of these opportunities to learn all about it. After many conversations with the drug representatives, a half-dozen nice meals and a few trips to warm, sandy beaches, he had plenty of information.

Time passed. More studies were done. The new drug seemed to perform somewhat less effectively than had been hoped. Advisory bodies began to warn that in some situations, the new drug should not be used at all: it was so ineffective it could get patients into trouble.

My friend, nothing if not conscientious, went through his list of patients to identify those with H.I.V. infection who were on the new drug, so that he could contact them and change their pills.

The next time I ran into him he was a little subdued, newly conscious of the power of subliminal advertising.

"It turns out I had an awful lot of people on that silly drug," he said. "I honestly can't imagine how that happened."

The Huffington Post - Cheerleaders, Your Doctor and Big Brother

At first blush, this post may seem off topic, but I don't think it is. Someone did a segment on the drug company reps on The Daily Show with Jon several days ago. (Very amusing.) Dr. Rost's post has links to the NYTimes articles mentioned._____http://tinyurl.com/ro6opCheerleaders, Your Doctor and Big Brother By Dr. RostThe Huffington PostMany science fiction stories from the last fifty years focused on the government keeping track of future citizens. Few envisioned private corporations keeping even more track of various professional groups. One such group is physicians. Many physicians don't know this, but the American Medical Association sells detailed data on both members and non-members. Research firms match this data with prescription information they've bought from pharmacies. And voila, they can then generate detailed information about every script an individual physician writes, and the data is then packaged and sold to the drug companies. So when a former cheerleader drug rep goes into a physician's office ("Gimme an Rx! Cheerleaders Pep Up Drug Sales," New York Times) she knows exactly what her physician has been up to, and if he's been faithful to her drug. If he hasn't behaved, she can wiggle her hips, play nurse with his stethoscope and seductively ask if he doesn't care about her and her products anymore. And, apparently this works quite well, since the number of drug sales reps have increased to around 100,000 in the U.S.If you'd like to learn more about how the pharmaceutical companies keep tabs on your physician, read the cover article "Doctors Object to Gathering of Drug Data" in the New York Times.This is far from the first article on this topic, however, the fact that this issue now makes the front page of the New York Times indicates that the heat on the drug industry is increasing. That shouldn't be surprising considering that in the most recent poll only 9% of the population thinks the drug industry is "generally honest and trustworthy. But who needs trust when they have a sales force filled with former cheerleaders?

[Guest guest]

Remember.

The electronic tracking systems which were grant funded by the Clinton administration and set up by the states during the 90's actually tracked children to make sure they complied with the vaccination schedule using various powers of the state.

Simply an attempt to refine their work.

The Huffington Post - Cheerleaders, Your Doctor and Big Brother

At first blush, this post may seem off topic, but I don't think it is. Someone did a segment on the drug company reps on The Daily Show with Jon several days ago. (Very amusing.) Dr. Rost's post has links to the NYTimes articles mentioned._____http://tinyurl.com/ro6opCheerleaders, Your Doctor and Big Brother By Dr. RostThe Huffington PostMany science fiction stories from the last fifty years focused on the government keeping track of future citizens. Few envisioned private corporations keeping even more track of various professional groups. One such group is physicians. Many physicians don't know this, but the American Medical Association sells detailed data on both members and non-members. Research firms match this data with prescription information they've bought from pharmacies. And voila, they can then generate detailed information about every script an individual physician writes, and the data is then packaged and sold to the drug companies. So when a former cheerleader drug rep goes into a physician's office ("Gimme an Rx! Cheerleaders Pep Up Drug Sales," New York Times) she knows exactly what her physician has been up to, and if he's been faithful to her drug. If he hasn't behaved, she can wiggle her hips, play nurse with his stethoscope and seductively ask if he doesn't care about her and her products anymore. And, apparently this works quite well, since the number of drug sales reps have increased to around 100,000 in the U.S.If you'd like to learn more about how the pharmaceutical companies keep tabs on your physician, read the cover article "Doctors Object to Gathering of Drug Data" in the New York Times.This is far from the first article on this topic, however, the fact that this issue now makes the front page of the New York Times indicates that the heat on the drug industry is increasing. That shouldn't be surprising considering that in the most recent poll only 9% of the population thinks the drug industry is "generally honest and trustworthy. But who needs trust when they have a sales force filled with former cheerleaders?

[Guest guest]

Saw the Daily Show bit, hilarious...

To see a video of this piece go to:

http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/videos/dan_bakkedah

l/index.jhtml

And click on: " Dr. Spin, Medicine Woman "

>

> At first blush, this post may seem off topic, but I don't think it

> is. Someone did a segment on the drug company reps on The Daily

Show

> with Jon several days ago. (Very amusing.)

>

> Dr. Rost's post has links to the NYTimes articles mentioned.

>

>

>

> _____

>

>