"Rebuilding Trust" in the Pharmaceutical Industry, or "Unintended Consequences"
When the pharmaceutical businesses decided to bypass physicians on the way to the end user, they thrust themselves into a marketplace of opinion that they just weren't ready to handle. A public relations wing of the drug marketing business that was busily trying to make the companies look good to doctors, isn't up to the task of making the companies look good to consumers.The rise of direct-to-consumer advertising correlates closely to the hysterical reactions that the industry is seeing now. When the business stops being a benefit to patients, and decides to enter the arena as a lifestyle choice, like the current marketing of erectile dysfunction drugs does, it is going to be viewed and treated differently.
The drug business has hopped into the middle of the public policy arena, and is acting surprised when laywers and lawmakers have a political heyday with them.
Truth be told, drug safety and usefulness has increased by many orders of magnitude in the last 25 years. Drug withdrawals have remained steady during that same period. The things that used to kill people don't any more, and conditions that were once fatal are now annoyances.
But in their zeal to win short term profits, the industry has kicked over the pedestal on which it once stood. The people that should be supporting the work the drug companies do, physicians, have been bypassed, manipulated, and become remarkably cynical about the whole business.
If the industry wants to win back public trust, they had better start with the doctors.
posted by Robert E. Sweeney, DA, MS @ 7:52 AM
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