Consumers International report on Pharmco Marketing Ethics

Sharon Hope · medicine forum Guru Joined: 30 Apr 2005 Posts: 752

Consumers International on Pharmco marketing:

Branding the Cure

A consumer perspective on Corporate Social Responsibility,
Drug Promotion and the Pharmaceutical Industry in Europe

Full text 51 page report in PDF:
http://www.consumersinternational.org/Shared_ASP_Files/UploadedFiles/EC
D91B6F-FE37-45C0-AE34-898BFB39C700_BrandingtheCure-fullreport.pdf

Executive summary 4 pages in PDF:
http://www.consumersinternational.org/Shared_ASP_Files/UploadedFiles/C4
40D7CA-0EA4-4D3C-AA0A-D1A58F476129_BrandingtheCure-ExecutiveSummary.pdf

Major report on lack of ethics in drug marketing. Examines CSR
(Corporate Social Responsibility) and finds it lacking. Identifies
specific companies and their issues. They asked these questions:

Why do consumers care about the corporate
ethics behind the medicines they consume?
Are the grand claims of responsible behaviour
asserted by the pharmaceutical giants genuine,
or another disappointing show of corporate savvy
in masking ethically questionable behaviour?

Some statin excerpts:

.. In 2004, in the Netherlands, the Code
Commission on the Code for the Promotion of
Medicinal Products judged Pfizer had made
misleading claims about the safety of Lipitor in
its promotion materials.126

.. In September 2005, the Prescription Access
Litigation project (PAL) filed a class-action
lawsuit in the US, accusing Pfizer of a deceptive
advertising campaign for Lipitor.136

.. In 2004 AZ organised an event to promote its
drug Crestor, which included tickets for a musical.
The meeting constituted a violation of the
Code on the Promotion of Medicinal Products.46

.. Pfizer filed a compliant about the promotion of
AstraZeneca's drug Crestor in 2004. The Code
Commission ruled that the promotion
contained some misleading claims.49

Some highlighted notes of general interest:

Misleading advertisements
`Claims about the effectiveness and safety of
drugs in promotional materials are known to
be often inaccurate. In 2004, the Institute for
Evidence-based Medicine performed an analysis
of 175 drug advertisements received by 43
doctors in Germany. The study showed that
94% of drug advertisements were not
supported by scientific evidence. Individual
claims about the drugs also included benefits
that were not mentioned in the articles,
omitted adverse effects and other important
findings, gave false descriptions of the studied
patient groups or other aspects of the trial
design were given, and wrongly cited figures.'

and

Should consumers trust patient groups?
A Finnish survey on the patient organisations
and their interactions with drug industry shows
that 71% of the patient organisations say that
they get financial support from pharmaceutical
companies. The support included advertising
in organisation magazines or newsletters,
participation in organising seminars, assistance
in printing costs, participation in projects, and
financial donations. It also showed that 55%
of the patient organisations reported that
co-operation with the drug industry was either
very important or important, and 33% reported
that co-operation had increased during the
last five years. Such relationships are not very
transparent and patients attending such groups
may not always be aware of the industry ties.

See the report to read the specific findings.

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