Drug Firms Fund Disease Awareness

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Misty L. Trepke

http://www..com

 

Drug firms fund disease awareness

 

Did you know that many activist/health/environmental/industry

associations and groups, in whole or part, are funded by

corporations with vested interests as this is the most effective and

the best public relations tactic money can buy?

 

Here is another example....

 

See also:

 

<http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2003/09/29/canadian_health_foo

d_association_chfa_member_questionnaire.htm>Canadian

Health Food Association (CHFA) Member Questionnaire

 

Chris Gupta

http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2003/12/19/drug_firms_fund_dise

ase_awareness.htm

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<http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/12/1071125652945.html>Drug

firms fund disease awareness

By Gary Hughes and Liz Minchin

December 13, 2003

 

Pharmaceutical companies are pouring millions of dollars into

patient advocacy groups and medical organisations to help expand

markets for their products.

 

They are also using sponsorships and educational grants to fund

disease-awareness campaigns that urge people to see their doctors.

 

Many groups have become largely or totally reliant on pharmaceutical

industry money, prompting concerns they are open to pressure from

companies pushing their products.

 

An investigation by The Age newspaper has found: An awareness

campaign run by the National Asthma Council was spearheaded by a

cartoon dragon that was the registered trademark of a drug company

used to promote one individual asthma medication.

 

A drug company used a public relations firm to set up an expert

medical board to persuade people they needed hepatitis A and B

vaccinations. The company was not interested in raising awareness

about

<http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2003/06/19/electricity_the_mot

her_of_all_medicine.htm>hepatitis

C because it did not sell a vaccine for the disease.

 

Treatment guidelines issued by Australian doctors for some diseases

are being modelled by those developed by international groups

entirely funded by pharmaceutical companies selling drugs for those

same diseases.

 

Groups funded by pharmaceutical companies are helping lobby the

federal Government to have new drugs added to the Pharmaceutical

Benefits Scheme.

 

The health policy officer with the Australian Consumers'

Association, Martyn Goddard, who is a former member of the federal

Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, said pharmaceutical

companies had far too much influence over many consumer groups.

 

" Drug companies find it very easy to recruit consumer groups and

they do it very cheaply, " he said.

 

" There's almost no such thing as clean money for most consumer

organisations. "

 

The total amount of money flowing into patient groups and medical

bodies in Australia is unclear. The most recent figure available

from the industry body Medicines Australia shows that drug companies

spent between $20 million and $25 million on philanthropic causes in

1999, which mostly covered payments to such groups.

 

One medical specialist involved in an organisation totally sponsored

by drug companies described the situation as like " dancing with the

devil " .

 

There are no independent regulations covering drug company

sponsorship deals and grants with patient groups in Australia.

 

Voluntary guidelines developed by Medicines Australia are now being

independently reviewed by Swinburne University. The review is being

funded by Medicines Australia and individual drug companies.

 

A South Australian general practitioner, Dr Peter Mansfield, who

runs the internationally renowned Healthy Skepticism website, which

exposes pharmaceutical marketing techniques, said the hijacking of

patient groups had become a huge problem.

 

" To be an advocate for people with those conditions, those

organisations ought to be free to criticise the drug companies -

just as they ought to be free to criticise doctors if we are not

doing our jobs properly, " he said.

 

--

Mike Christie

(613) 228-7499 / bus.

(613) 228-7487 / fax.

<mikechristiemikechristie / e-mail

 

The Laws of Ecology: " All things are interconnected. Everything goes

somewhere. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Nature bats last. "

by Ernest Callenbach

 

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