Legal Drug Pushing At Its Finest
At a Congressional hearing on Thursday, the pathetic state of the regulation of prescription drugs was laid bare as documents detailing Merck's massive promotional campaign to sell the drug Vioxx were made public. The most troubling things about the documents was that included in them were rather misleading "cardiovascular cards" that left out studies that existed at the time showing Vioxx increased the risk of heart disease. But there was much more in the documents, including instructions on how to shake hands with the doctor.
Instructions to the company's sales crew were as detailed as how long to shake a physician's hand -- three seconds -- and how to eat bread when dining with doctors -- "one small bitesize piece at a time."
Sales representatives were offered $2,000 bonuses for meeting sales goals, and worked in campaigns with such code-names as "Project Offense" to try to boost sales even as regulators were about to increase warnings on the drug's label.
Don't bring up the heart risks, warns a February 9, 2001, memo.
And when doctors asked about those risks, the Merck sales reps were to refer to a "cardiovascular card" with data suggesting that Vioxx could be safer than other anti-inflammatory drugs. Yet the card, also released Thursday, doesn't include the very study that raised the first warning signal that Vioxx could harm.
Now, this does bring up a fair question: shouldn't doctors be relying on the actual literature to know what to prescribe, not what a paid salesman tells them? Well, yeah, obviously, but they probably aren't.
Rep. Tom Davis, R-Virginia, the committee chairman, said the new documents raise questions about Merck's handling of Vioxx. But he said he was not prepared to criticize the company without more information, noting that Merck made public results of its own studies that raised the concerns -- data subsequently widely published, in medical journals and newspapers.
"A wide-awake physician would have obviously known about this?" Davis asked.
"That is correct," [Merck Vice-President Dennis] Erb responded.
But another witness, Dr. Michael Wilkes, vice dean for medical education at the University of California-Davis, said physicians are busy and look for shortcuts to get information. "Doctors don't read the medical literature," he said, and often rely on the salesman they meet in their office.
The lesson here for us all is that when your doctor pushes a certain drug on you, don't be automatically certain he or she is doing it because it's the best. It might be because they've been sold on it, and only now what they know on it based on very misleading information.
Comments
siiix
Eaton, OH
June 2003
MAY 08, 2005 08:42 PM
theseeman
Asheville, NC
December 2002
MAY 08, 2005 09:25 PM
doghouse_reilly
I'm lost
February 2004
MAY 08, 2005 09:34 PM
BurningKrome
San Jose, CA
April 2005
MAY 08, 2005 09:48 PM
BurningKrome
San Jose, CA
April 2005
MAY 08, 2005 09:51 PM
r00kers
Nederland, CO
February 2003
MAY 08, 2005 09:57 PM
SomeOneUK
United Kingdom
June 2004
MAY 09, 2005 12:07 AM