Fwd: Switch and bait

[Guest guest]

Tue, 29 Jul 2003 13:41:59 -0500

WC Douglass

Switch and bait

 

Daily Dose

 

July 29, 2003

 

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Is your doctor moonlighting - as a drug rep?

 

The people who run drug companies are crafty devils; I'll

give them that. They can find more ways to sell drugs than

the neighborhood narcotic pusher! Case in point: Paying

doctors to market drugs to OTHER doctors. Why would they do

this? Because drug makers are prohibited from marketing

individual drugs for the treatment of medical conditions the

FDA hasn't specifically approved them for...

 

But DOCTORS labor under no such restrictions.

 

That's right: Doctors can legally prescribe any drug to any

patient for any condition. For example, if your M.D.

believes - or has been convinced by another doctor on the

drug company payroll - that prescribing a certain foot fungus

drug will cure you of cataracts, then it's perfectly legal

for him (or HER, I know!) to recommend it. As long as the

prescribing doc learned about the technique from ANOTHER

DOCTOR, it's all well and good in the eyes of the law.

 

So what do the drug companies do? They pay individual doctors

tens of thousands of dollars to give presentations and

seminars to their colleagues about the wonders of a certain

drug that's made for one disease to treat other medical

conditions - thereby increasing demand for the drug without

illegally " marketing " it. The spokes-doctors become, in

effect, drug sales reps to their industry.

 

This seems to push the envelope of what's legal, doesn't it?

 

A former employee of drug maker Warner-Lambert (now owned by

Pfizer) thinks so, too. He's the star whistle-blower witness

for the prosecution in a case against the drug giant for

illegal marketing practices - including not just such " peer

selling " scams as revealed above, but also the outright

suggestion of unapproved uses by the company's field sales

reps! The gall and greed of these people is outrageous, isn't

it?

 

This could be big - a landmark case for reigning in the out-

of-control marketing practices of drug companies. It could

also send shockwaves throughout the conventional medical

community about the proper role of doctors in the medication

process - and maybe force some basic ethics back into the

equation...

 

Think about it: Would you feel good about taking a drug in an

unauthorized manner because your doctor was paid to endorse

it to his colleagues - and he needed to be able to say he

prescribed it in his practice?

 

Don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to be a guinea pig.

 

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Liquid junk food...

 

Remember when " soft drinks " meant sodas like Coke, Pepsi,

7up, etc?

 

Well, nowadays the term applies to basically anything wet

that's not alcoholic - including so-called " sports " drinks

and a whole raft of souped-up teas, juices, and coffees.

But here's a news flash for you: All of them are basically

the same thing...

 

Overpriced, over-hyped, carbohydrate saturated sugar-water.

 

Now I'm sure that the marketing gurus who work in the plush

offices of these various drink-makers would take me to task

on that claim - after all, they stand to gain a considerable

market share by adding a sprinkle of nutrients or herbs or

some such. But I stand beside my original assessment. Just

because they dissolve a Flintstones vitamin into what's

basically Kool-Aid doesn't make it what they portray it to

be: Nutritious. And no amount of marketing, packaging, or

food coloring in the whole world can change that.

 

But why should this matter to those fat cats up in the

executive suite? That sugar-water's liquid gold to them -

who cares if millions of people are misled by the ads into

thinking they're drinking healthy, rejuvenating " electrolytes "

and what not? I wonder: What will the next big trend in

drinks will be - once they've marketed every possible

combination of sucrose, food coloring, and H20, that is...

 

Will it be super-caffeinated " energy drinks? " Oh wait,

they've got that already - it's a trendy new drink called Red

Bull. What about tap water that's pumped into a fancy bottle

with a picture of a snow-capped mountain on it, then sold at

a 95 percent mark-up? Wait a minute; they've done that as

well... (But I don't mean to imply that ALL bottled water is

bad - you SHOULD drink chemical-free water, which for most

people, means bottled water.)

 

And here's a doozy: How about alcoholic beverages with

powerful aphrodisiacs mixed in!

 

Oh, wait - they're doing that, too (Daily Dose, 4/25)...

 

When will people learn that for a drink to be good for you,

it's got to come by way of Mother Nature - not Madison

Avenue?

 

Not letting them off the hook for this scam,

 

William Campbell Douglass II, MD

 

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