PharmedOut 2015

Coach is Right ^ | 6/23/15 | Michael D. Shaw

[Oldpuppymax]

PharmedOut is a Georgetown University Medical Center project that advances evidence-based prescribing, and educates healthcare professionals about pharmaceutical marketing practices. Founded in January, 2007, it is an Internet-based alternative for doctors seeking Continuing Medical Education (CME) courses, not sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry.

Inasmuch as the industry derives its greatest profits from new proprietary drugs, it has a built-in tendency to tout them, even though newer is not always better. One example, cited at the time of PharmedOut’s founding, came from Georgetown Ob-Gyn doctor Anthony Scialli: “Take oral contraceptives. Over the years they have increased in number, but there haven’t really been any major advances since the 1970s. The newer ones are more expensive. Why do doctors prescribe them? Because of promotion and educational activities funded by the manufacturers.”

Starting in 2010, PharmedOut has organized annual conferences. The theme of this year’s conference (June 11-12) was “The Real Risks of Rx Drugs.” Over the two days, there were 16 presentations. Let’s take a look at three of them…

The endangered normal: Does anyone escape a diagnosis?—-given by Georgetown’s Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, a founder of PharmedOut. As she puts it, “the medicalization of daily life has become endemic.” Whether it is a shy kid with “social anxiety disorder”; a young woman who is less horny than her partner with “hypoactive sexual desire disorder”; or someone who urinates more than four times per day with “overactive bladder syndrome,” people with these common–and likely harmless–conditions create a potentially huge, if unjustified market.

Given TV drug advertising, patients are probably more susceptible to this sort of fearmongering, but doctors are not immune. To be sure, Big Pharma uses financial and non-financial inducements to influence those who prescribe. In an earlier article, Fugh-Berman noted that “Physicians fail to recognize their vulnerability to commercial influences...