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Quotes about Drug Marketing from the world's top natural health / natural living authors

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"Paxil's story is a particularly sordid, and successful, episode in the history of drug marketing. Paxil was a late entrant to the SSRI party—not arriving until 1993, five years after Prozac and a year after Zoloft. Sales prospects seemed limited. In response, Glaxo-SmithKline positioned Paxil as an antianxiety drug, and on April 16, 2001, got their prize: FDA approval as an agent for "generalized anxiety disorder," previously a little-known condition." - Charles Barber, Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Is Medicating a Nation (Get the book.) "The New York Times noted that by 2005, consumers seemed to be less confident in drug marketing. "A lot of the demand that the industry has created over the years has been through promotion, and for that promotion to be effective, there has to be trust," said Richard Evans, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, an investment research company. "That trust has been lost."92 For all the well-documented excesses and the slick distortions, I was most jarred by an ad for Zoloft that made the rounds in 2006 in big-circulation and women's magazines like Glamour." - Charles Barber, Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Is Medicating a Nation (Get the book.)

"For example, Franklin recalled how an employee videotaped a training seminar at which executives lectured him and other medical liaisons on what they must do to stay within the lines of the government's drug marketing regulations. With the camera on, the executives leading the seminar reminded the group that the position of medical liaison was not that of a salesperson. They explained that medical liaisons could offer physicians information, but their job was not to promote the company's products. They also explained how the company could not push products for off-label uses." - Melody Petersen, Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs (Get the book.) "The FDA must change the drug marketing rules to stop companies from hiring celebrities to endorse their products or talk about health matters with the public. Americans' fascination with celebrities makes it impossible for a Hollywood star or a sports hero to talk about a drug without leaving an impression that it is some kind of panacea. Nonprofit groups should also be prevented from promoting medicines to the public without disclosing they have received money from the drugs'manufacturers." - Melody Petersen, Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs (Get the book.) "One of the most powerful drug marketing campaigns aimed at Christians was performed not directly by the industry but by a theologian named Dr. Paul Meier, a popular radio talk show host and the owner of a chain of mental health clinics. His book Blue Genes was published in 2005 with help from Focus on the Family, a national group popular with many Christian conservatives in Iowa and across the country. The book was a kind of spiritual guide for those dealing with depression or anxiety." - Melody Petersen, Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs (Get the book.) "With its lavender-colored logo resembling a graceful swan and advertisements sporting young, beautiful models, eflornithine became another prescription drug marketing success. The company christened its product Vaniqa. This is a book about a great transformation in the prescription drug industry over the last twenty-five years. Once the most successful pharmaceutical companies were those with the brightest scientists searching for cures. Now the most profitable and powerful drugmakers are those with the most creative and aggressive marketers." - Melody Petersen, Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs (Get the book.)

"But by redefining "the boundaries that separate the healthy from the well," as Ray Moyni-han and Alan Cassels put it, and by exaggerating the dangers of mild problems and the prevalence of rare conditions, drug marketing has helped persuade both physicians and patients that they must worry about the littlest sign of incipient illness—that getting treated as early as possible for disease will lead to a longer and healthier life." - Shannon Brownlee, Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer (Get the book.)

"The FDA's Division of drug marketing, Advertising, and Communications has notified Pharmacia Corporation that it considered... promotional statements and actions by or on behalf of Pharmacia [concerning Celebrex] to be false or misleading and therefore in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. I recalled the unusually forthright editorial about Celebrex and Vioxx that I had read in the Journal of the American Medical Association about a 23 year and a half earlier, when these drugs were first approved." - John Abramson, Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine (P.S.) (Get the book.)

"In the field of prescription drug marketing, there rose a vast new network of stars and institutions. Heads of marketing from traditional consumer goods firms began to migrate to big pharma, bringing with them a whole new set of tools. The guru of Pfizer's DTC efforts hailed from Kraft's cereal and yogurt division, and the new head of the company's Lipitor DTC program came via the Flintstones vitamin division of Bayer and the Softsoap division of Colgate. At Merck, the DTC guru came via Maxwell House coffee." - Greg Critser, Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies (Get the book.) "At the FDA's Division of drug marketing, Advertising, and Communications (DDMAC), a small and traditionally underfunded unit dedicated to making sure that drug ads to physicians were accurate and balanced, evidence of the trend was clear. On September 6,1994, for example, DDMAC obtained compelling evidence that sales representatives of SmithKline, makers of Paxil, were handing out unapproved, homemade promotional materials containing false and misleading claims. One of the items was a handwritten note, on Paxil stationery, left with physicians. "Dr. [X]. Hello!," it said. " - Greg Critser, Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies (Get the book.) "The Division of drug marketing, Advertising and Communications (DDMAC), the tiny department charged with such regulation, grew rife with institutional second-guessing. The consequence, as a congressional report would later find, was that in 2003 DDMAC issued drug makers 75 percent fewer warning letters, its chief enforcement device, than it did during the last two years of the Clinton administration. Even the pharmaceuticals trade press was stunned by the change, noting in one headline that "Most Medical Promotion Is Out of Sight of Regulators." - Greg Critser, Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies (Get the book.)

"False Claims The FDA's Division of drug marketing, Advertising, and Communications (DDMAC) is responsible for keeping drug ads from making false claims. Now that the ads go out to anyone who watches television, it is more important than ever to monitor advertisements. But it is hard to regulate an industry that knows it can increase revenues by tens or even hundreds of millions with one dishonest but effective ad." - Dr. Timothy Scott, America Fooled: The Truth About Antidepressants, Antipsychotics and How We've Been Deceived (Get the book.)

"But by redefining "the boundaries that separate the healthy from the well," as Ray Moyni-han and Alan Cassels put it, and by exaggerating the dangers of mild problems and the prevalence of rare conditions, drug marketing has helped persuade both physicians and patients that they must worry about the littlest sign of incipient illness—that getting treated as early as possible for disease will lead to a longer and healthier life." - Shannon Brownlee, Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer (Get the book.)

"FDA, doctors, and drug marketing reps who are always pushing and exaggerating the supposed benefits of their drugs while minimizing their risks. Because, you see, even though this drug may help one out of 100 people, its side effects create increased risks to all 100 people. Everyone suffers some harm from the potential side effects of the drug, even if that harm is not immediately evident. Yet only one out of 100 people was actually helped by the drug." - Mike Adams, Natural Health Solutions (Get the book.)

"It ushered in the era of Internet drug marketing. Among many other things it changed the billion-dollar porn industry, which changed Internet entertainment marketing. It did not exactly transform aging, as Steere had hoped, but it did change youth. Viagra's presence was so huge, its medical legitimacy established so quickly and so pithily, that teenagers in Brooklyn were popping "V," as they called it, with their "X," although why these kids needed help getting a boner was not something anyone ever explored in the R&D departmerit." - Greg Critser, Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies (Get the book.)

"While drug marketing is not the sole factor in the medicalization of shyness (S. Scott, 2006), it is a key example of how pharmaceutical marketing can reframe and medicalize common human characteristics and experiences. SAD and GAD were fairly obscure diagnoses when they were added to the third edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-III) in 1980." - Peter Conrad, The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders (Get the book.)

"Free Samples and Off-Label Use -Amother drug marketing statistic that jumps out is the $16.4 billion spent on the free samples distributed to physician's offices. This is reminiscent of dope dealers who get people hooked by giving them a free high. PhRMA's position on free samples is that it "gets patients started on therapy right away or helps physicians optimize dosing on the choice of drug before committing to a particular course of treatment." Drug company sales representatives are trained to peddle drugs to physicians." - Craig Pepin-Donat, The Big Fat Health and Fitness Lie (Get the book.)

"Thus, one prescription drug, through its harmful side effects, actually creates a market for more prescription drugs, and this is one reason why drug marketing is so successful and profitable: because the product itself creates more harm to be treated by yet more drugs from the same drug company. So you're actually paying for these drugs twice. But that's not the end of the story. It turns out you, the American taxpayer, are often paying for these drugs three times. Where does the third time come in?" - Mike Adams, Natural Health Solutions (Get the book.) "Public Citizen The key to effective drug marketing is direct-to-consumer drug advertising—a practice that's banned everywhere else except, of course, in the United States. In a blatant move to prop up the profits of Big Pharma, the FDA legalized direct-to-consumer advertising in late 1997, and the drug industry has been racking up record profits and revenue growth ever since. But the whole idea of marketing prescription drugs directly to consumers is preposterous. If only doctors are qualified to make decisions about drugs, why isn't drug advertising limited to doctors?" - Mike Adams, Natural Health Solutions (Get the book.)

"Contact your local school administration, and put a stop to the "very aggressive" drug marketing campaign via the TeenScreen movement, (an all out effort to get as many of our children as possible on their very profitable, mind-altering, disease promoting drugs). Even some churches might consider getting involved, as they can have an influence on their congregation as well. You might also check with your local senior center. There are a lot of talented senior citizens just looking for a worthwhile cause. It gives them a reason for living, (one thing that helps keep them young and active)." - Dr David W Tanton, Ph.D., Antidepressants, Antipsychotics, And Stimulants - Dangerous Drugs on Trial (Get the book.)

"Bayer Pleads Guilty In 2003 Bayer, a German company, pled guilty to violating the federal Prescription drug marketing Act, signed a corporate integrity agreement, and paid $257 million. This included a criminal fine of $5.6 million for overcharges involving its antibiotic Cipro and its high blood-pressure drug Adalat, and nearly $252 million in civil penalties under the False Claims Act.' Bayer's conduct was billed as "the largest Medicaid fraud in history."10 The whistleblower in this case, Mr. Couto, died of pancreatic cancer before Bayer pled guilty." - Peter Rost, The Whistleblower: Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman (Get the book.) "TAP agreed to plead guilty to a conspiracy to violate the Prescription drug marketing Act which included a $290-million criminal fine, the largest criminal fine ever in a health-care fraud prosecution. TAP also agreed to settle its False Claims Act liabilities and to pay $559.5 million to the U.S government for filing false and fraudulent claims with the Medicare and Medicaid programs and to settle its civil liabilities to the fifty states and the District of Columbia and to pay them $25.5 million for filing false and fraudulent claims." - Peter Rost, The Whistleblower: Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman (Get the book.)

"Physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and even medical office receptionists are also targets PAYING FOR THE FREE LUNCH • There are more than 100,000 drug sales reps in the United States1 • That's one sales rep for every four doctors • drug marketing costs $12 billion to $15 billion per year2 • That's $8,000 to $15,000 spent on marketing per year per doctor3 • 90 percent of continuing medical education materials for physicians are produced by drug companies4 of a full-court press by drug companies." - Joe Graedon, M.S. and Teresa Graedon, Ph.D., Best Choices From the People's Pharmacy (Get the book.)

"Some MECCs are even owned by large advertising agencies, making the connection between continuing medical education and drug marketing still more obvious. Now why should MECCs, which are paid by drug companies, be accredited by the ACCME? Well, the answer may have something to do with the makeup of the Task Force on Industry-Professional Collaboration in Continuing Medical Education, which was created to help the ACCME formulate policies on conflicts of interest." - Marcia Angell, M.D., The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It (Get the book.)

"Rather, the aim is to expose the way drug marketing, masquerading as education or awareness-raising, attempts to so profoundly reshape our views about what constitutes tteatable illness, and at the same time channel people towards the latest pill. The day after that Williams television interview on NBC, the same network broadcast a segment billed as providing tips for shy people. During the show an expert told the vast viewing audience that for "social anxiety disorders or even a public speaking problem, medication may be helpful." - Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels, Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All into Patients (Get the book.) "In the world of drug marketing, Wyeth s Lesa Henry is seen as well ahead of the game. She was one of the first to recognize the value of celebrities for "educating consumers" about health conditions, and the drugs that go with them.2 One of Wyeth s major coups had been hiring supermodel Lauren Hutton to help raise public awareness about a "health condition" otherwise known as the menopause—the time in a woman's life when her Working with celebrities Menopause periods, and her fertility, come to an end." - Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels, Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All into Patients (Get the book.)

"Katharine Grei-der, in her book The Big Fix, describes in vivid detail how drug marketing permeates the medical profession.21 I mentioned that in 2001 the industry employed some 88,000 sales representatives to visit doctors in their offices and hospitals to promote their products. That comes to something like one for every five or six practicing physicians, depending on whether you count interns and residents.22 These drug reps or detailers, as they are known, are ubiquitous in the medical world." - Marcia Angell, M.D., The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It (Get the book.)

"Nonetheless, to me these relationships between the academics and the companies (which may include providing advice about drug marketing) are too close, too collaborative, and too cozy. They generate income for some of the participants and thus induce some obligation to advocate for the company in unseen ways. Another educational venture, the National Initiative in Sepsis Education (NISE), was founded by Eli Lilly and Company in 2000 to "deliver information on new therapies [for severe sepsis]." Its educational programs are accredited by Vanderbilt University." - Jerome P. Kassirer, On the Take: How Medicine's Complicity with Big Business Can Endanger Your Health (Get the book.)

"Except among drug and device manufacturers, tighter controls on certain aspects of drug marketing would be welcome. For example, recent changes in the drug industry have reduced some gifts to doctors, but others persist, and the changes are voluntary. Some states, like Vermont, have proposed that drug companies be required to report any gifts to doctors that are over $25 in value.1 Though the definition of a gift may sometimes be ambiguous, this seems like a good start." - Richard A. Deyo M.D. M.P.H., Donald L. Patrick, Hope or Hype: The Obsession with Medical Advances and the High Cost of False Promises (Get the book.) "Then in 2003, AstraZeneca pleaded guilty to violating the Prescription drug marketing Act and agreed to pay $355 million to settle civil and criminal charges for marketing schemes similar to those used by TAP for Lupron. Douglas Durand commented, "It was egregious, the behaviors of both companies, in terms of fraud against consumers." He claimed that the companies knew of each other's illegal sales methods and kept a "peaceful coexistence."47 Sometimes, drug company largesse has benefited health-care organizations rather than individual doctors." - Richard A. Deyo M.D. M.P.H., Donald L. Patrick, Hope or Hype: The Obsession with Medical Advances and the High Cost of False Promises (Get the book.)

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