249311 Industry management of medical knowledge

Monday, October 31, 2011: 10:30 AM

Adriane Fugh-Berman, MD , Department of Pharmacology, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC
The pharmaceutical industry uses prescription records, medical records, and personal information to manipulate prescriber and consumer behavior. Many avenues of influence are not readily identifiable as advertising; for example, articles in medical journals or consumer magazines may be written by industry medical writers. Ghostwritten articles in medical journals have been used to exaggerate benefits and minimize perceptions of risk for targeted therapies; combat generic drugs, complementary medicine, and other competing therapies, and foster the acceptance of invented diseases. The case of menopausal hormone therapy will be used as an example.

Learning Areas:
Advocacy for health and health education
Ethics, professional and legal requirements
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Public health or related public policy

Learning Objectives:
1) Identify pharmaceutical company marketing tactics that are not immediately recognizable as such.

Keywords: Evidence Based Practice, Ethics

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the director of PharmedOut.org, a project founded with a grant from the Attorneys General Consumer and Prescriber Program to educate physicians about how pharmaceutical companies influence prescribing. My current research focuses on pharmaceutical marketing.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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