By Rafael Vilalta, May 17th, 2011
A sales representative's visit generates about 35 new prescriptions of the drug, says Professor Joan-Ramon Laporte, head of the pharmacology of the Vall d'Hebron Hospital and director of the Fundació Institut Català of Pharmacology (WHO collaborating).
Do you understand that there are citizens who are suspicious of pharmaceutical companies?
Yes companies exaggerate the benefits of the drugs they sell, and minimize or even deny, the effects serious side. For citizens, are a tool for health. For pharmaceuticals, are a product to sell to the fullest.
Is there enough control in the sector?
Rather, they are the pharmaceutical companies that control to the states, and not vice versa, it should be. More than an insufficient legal regulation, a set of laws and regulations designed to encourage pharmaceutical companies. Buy pharmaceutical lobbies politicians, regulators, health professionals and patient associations.
And in the U.S.?
In the U.S. spend more than $ 500 million annually in lobbying (which are legal) on politicians to change laws or proposed legislation, it is estimated that there are eight or nine pressured ( English, lobbyists) for each congressman. Drugs are the third world economic activity after the arms trade and drug trafficking.
What solution is to cases of medical representatives who buy prescriptions?
has been and is still going on more or less formal purchase, gifts, meals, travel ... Many doctors accept it thinking that it influences their decisions to prescribe a drug or another. Pharmaceutical companies in Spain spent more than 2,500 million euros on promotion, that is, purchasing decisions, nearly triple the money in research.
If you are doing, is it because they find it profitable?
Yes No employer in their right mind would enter in your company representatives of other companies from raw materials to make there market its products. But in health centers is done.
The European Medicines Agency estimated that in Europe die each year 197,000 people due to adverse effects of medicines.
The figure is probably underreported. U.S. the side effects of medications are the fourth leading cause of death, ahead of diabetes, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and traffic accidents. In the FICF estimate that every year in Spain, tens of thousands of people for these unwanted effects.
What worries you most?
That the authorities do not worry about knowing what positive and negative effects of the drugs. They see the price, but not the effects.
http://www.pharmanetworkingspain.com/noticias/laporte-los-laboratorios-gastan-casi-el-triple-en-promocion-que-en-investigacion/
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