The really sad thing about the new PhRMA marketing guidelines is that they, basically, match what Senator Charles Grassley is proposing. Talk about inside-the-Beltway groupthink.
Consider this – the big news is (are you sitting down) – no more pens or coffee mugs! Gadzooks.
(Is there a lobby for specialty goods manufacturers? We’ll soon find out.)
What's the attitude of the AMA is on this matter? It should be righteous indignation that the pfolks at PhRMA and too many members of the United States Congress, think that a physician can be bought for trinkets. Good thing these guys weren’t around for the negotiations over Manhattan Island.
But as silly and trivial as this sounds, the more serious issue at play is the caving in by the pharmaceutical industry to misguided political pressure. Silly in the instance of pens and coffee mugs perhaps – but what comes next? A “voluntary moratorium” on DTC advertising? The demonization of published articles on the off-label uses of medicines? It’s a long list.
When is a conflict not a conflict? If the answer is, “When Senator Grassley says so,” then the slope the industry is on is indeed a slippery one.
The only positive thing that will come from the Tchatchke Intifada is that pharmaceutical sales representatives won’t have to schlep them from office to office – thereby lightening their load, improving their gas mileage and decreasing the overall carbon footprint of the industry.
Where’s Nick Naylor when you need him?
The Tchatchke Intifada
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