Have you ever seen an ad on TV for a prescription medication? My six year old sun enjoys NASCAR and I cringe when he sings along with the “Viva Viagra” theme song. Have you ever gone to your healthcare provider and asked for a medication or therapy by name? It is likely that you got that idea from a direct to consumer marketing campaign by the manufacturer.
My book review today is about Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine
by Dr. John Abrahamson. This book is written by a physician who has taken the time to dissect the “evidence based ” studies that medical practitioners like physicians use to base the standard of care. It is quite disturbing to find that many of these ground breaking treatments are studied under the direct financial influence of the drug manufacturer in question. For example, funding for the FDA to evaluate a new drug application actually comes from the drug manufacturer. Confilt of interest you say? Worse still, it is not uncommon for the group of authors conducting the study supporting the new medication to have direct financial ties to the drug manufacturer. Do you think that you could give an objective assessment of a product or treatment knowing that the drug or device manufacturer would take away your funding if you didn’t publish a favorable response? A glaring problem is that most of these researches have not subscribed to the Jim Cramer rules of disclosure. Cramer was one of the first stock market guru’s to openly disclose what he owned when he talked about it on TV. Therefore at least informing you what interest in the entity he had before you ran out and bought a stock recommendation of his. Seems ethical right? Not in the drug industry.
Dr Abrahamson points out the conflict of interest is not limited to a study on a patient population for say, the newest cholesterol busting drug. Conflicts of interest exist in the FDA, National Institutes of Health, and even in advisory boards that write protocols for standards of care.
If you would like to be a better informed American about the state of our healthcare industry, I suggest that you add Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine to your reading list. As a pharmacist of 12 years, this is eye opening information about an industry that we count on to save lives. I always believed we had the best health care in the world in the United States, now I am not so sure.
Do you use healthcare services in the USA? Have you ever seen a television or magazine advertisement for a prescription drug? Do you find it influencing your health care decisions?
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