The American Journal of Public Health, a recently published a healthy policy and ethics article titled: The Inverse Benefit Law: How Drug Marketing Undermines Patient Safety and Public Health.
The authors critically review recent issue of pharmaceutical market withdrawals and postulate that these are not random events, but rather, part of a recurring theme. Under the 'inverse benefit law' the ratio of benefits to harm varies inversely by how extensively the drugs are marketed.
Extensive and aggressive marketing is driven by primarily by profit motive and financial gain, not the public good.
6 basic marketing strategies are higlighted:
- reducing thresholds for diagnosing disease
- relying on surrogate endpoints
- exaggerating safety claims
- exaggerating efficacy claims
- creating new diseases
- encouraging unapproved use
By allowing a for-profit industry to heavily influence its practice, education, and research, the medical profession has compromised the integrity of medical science and public trust.
Comparative effectiveness research and reforms to improve evidence-based prescribing are urgently needed.
