Big Pharm targets your doctor's prescribing habits

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...052101701.html
or
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2hc2gh

"Many doctors object to drugmakers' common practice of
contracting with data-mining companies to track exactly which
medicines physicians prescribe and in what quantities --
information marketers and salespeople use to fine-tune their
efforts."

The article describes how this is done - don't miss the graphic
at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...052200084.html
or
http://preview.tinyurl.com/yrxgjj

So your doctor gives you a prescription for Prozac. Why might
he/she choose this drug? Maybe last week the sales rep from Eli
Lilly had looked at your doctor's prescribing habits and used

"...the data to tout the virtues of Eli Lilly's antidepressant
Prozac to doctors who favored the rival drug Effexor -- noting,
for example, that its [Prozac's] longer half-life meant that if
patients missed a dose over a weekend, they would experience less
severe agitation and other withdrawal symptoms that might prompt
them to call their doctor. He did not mention the rival drug by
name or disclose that he knew the physician's prescribing habits,
he [Ahari] said."

It seems that when your doctor prescribes you a drug, it's
advisable to ask if it's the most effective drug, and if there is
an equally effective generic, why he/she chose that particular
brand.

FurPaw
--
My family values don't involve depleted uranium.

To reply, unleash the dog.

FurPaw <furrealpawdog@gmail.com> wrote in
news:kN6dndPpLM_KSffbnZ2dnUVZ_jidnZ2d@comcast.com:

> So your doctor gives you a prescription for Prozac. Why might
> he/she choose this drug? Maybe last week the sales rep from Eli
> Lilly had looked at your doctor's prescribing habits and used
>

What I find most disturbing about this whole thing is that it indicates
that doctors think that the information they get from drug reps is
reliable except for this sort of thing.

If they can't or won't take the time to investigate drugs for themselves,
and their association can't or won't do it either, why are they whining
about Big Pharm? Big Pharm has found a way to make their sales pitches a
little better. Good for them. The AMA makes megabucks selling the
information to Big Pharm. Hooray. But none of that relieves the doctor
of his responsibility to prescribe responsibly.

Laws to keep prescribing information private are missing the point
entirely: doctors are completely ignorant about what they're prescribing
except for what they're told by drug reps. That's the scandal, not how
the drug reps try to push their product.

The bottom line is just what it's always been: you have to be your own
doctor. It's just a damn shame that you have to pay the doctor so much
so that you can go tell him what to prescribe for you.

Chak


--
Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget
us.
--Henrik Tikkanen