students warned on drug companies

[Guest guest]

Quite interesting its just a " warning " that they could harm their future

patients.

Rather than something beign actually DONE about it

Students warned on drug company freebies

Medical students who accept gifts from drug companies risk harming their

future patients through biased prescribing practices, a team of Australian

doctors has warned.

Books, pens, food and medical equipment are among the gifts presented to

medical students by pharmaceutical companies, which collectively spent about

$1.3 billion on drug promotion in Australia last year.

Associate Professor and colleagues from Flinders University,

the University of Adelaide and the Women's and Children's Hospital said

students may believe there's no harm in accepting such gratuities because

they are not yet seeing patients.

However, they wrote in the latest Medical Journal of Australia, gifts create

a conscious or unconscious desire to do the gift-giver a favour.

" The obligation, although often tacit, is very real - prescribe this

company's drugs rather than any alternatives, " Assoc Prof said.

<http://direct.ninemsn.com.au/scripts/accipiter/adclick/cat=news/site=ninems

n.news/area=National/loc=top/aamsz=medium>

As a result, the student's future patients may not get the medicine most

suitable for their condition.

Rendering students beholden to drug companies also carried potential

implications for the reform and evolution of medicine, she said.

" Accepting gifts potentially silences medical students as critics of

industry-profession relationships, " Assoc Prof explained.

" This means that society loses the important contribution to reform provided

by young people who have not yet accepted `normal' professional behaviours. "

Along with her colleagues, Assoc Prof urged students to ignore the

advances of pharmaceutical companies.

" Both the ethical arguments and the limited available empirical evidence

lead to the conclusion that the best policy is for medical students to have

no contact with drug companies, " she said.

National Health and Medical Research Council ethics committee chair Dr Kerry

Breen echoed the sentiment, saying it should also extend to practicing

doctors.

" The pharmaceutical industry has learnt to influence our prescribing

behaviour indirectly, " Dr Breen said.

" My criticism is of the naivete of doctors and or their unwillingness to

accept overwhelming evidence that the techniques used by the industry to

increase prescribing of their products actually work.

" Most doctors seem to genuinely perceive they are immune to such

influences. "

Doctors should refuse to see pharmaceutical industry sales representatives

and institutions should wean themselves off drug company funding, Dr Breen

said.