- Joined
- May 31, 2006
- Messages
- 1,732
- Reaction score
- 13
If you are going to get nearly idential results, though, I'm not against throwing the rep a bone. It's a fine line, but as long as you make patient outcome the "rate-limiting-step" I have no problem with drug reps. I just wish they could still take the docs golfing... I'd lobby for that any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
See that's part of the problem...you're willing to throw them a bone...and in your example it's Viagra vs Cialis. What if one of them was available as a generic, and the other one isn't but their rep has been buttering you up?
You'd just be passing the buck to insurance (assuming they'd cover non-generic Cialis over a generic Viagara or vice versa), and thus to everyone paying for insurance. Sure, you're just one doc, but multiply this by every single doctor and you suddenly have a hella expensive problem.
And even if they had nearly identical results, which one would actually work better for the patient? (Cialis doesn't work exactly like Viagara since you're talking 3 days vs 5 hours) Which one has less risks for the patient considering his medical history?
Anyways, is big pharma the devil? No, I don't believe that, but if you don't think big pharma does some VERY shady and unethical stuff then you're out of your mind. AstraZeneca and all the bullcrap they pulled advertising Nexium to doctors when Prilosec beat Nexium in almost every test they performed except one? (and that one had the Nexium "standard dose" set mysteriously to twice the Prilosec dose, lol) Hell, their advertising worked so well that someone in my class actually started insisting that Nexium wasn't like Prilosec at all when I pointed out that Nexium is just one of the isomers in Prilosec. She went raving because she "knew" this from working in some doctor's office or something.
Oh, and when I attened an insurance coverage meeting at work once, a nurse actually asked our insurance company rep if Nexium was covered (vs Prilosec) *sigh*
You'd think a nurse and a public health major would be less gullible, but apparently not.
Anyways, the real problem here isn't that the drug companies advertise. It's that they use advertising to get away with selling you drugs that aren't any better for more money, while they extend their patents over and over on ridiculous tweaks that are supposedly improvements. And instead of actually innovating they usually just lawyer up then launch a bazillion lawsuits left and right if someone attempts to make a generic. They'll patent the stupidest thing ever (like sugar coating a tablet, even though such a patent is worthless since it's prior art you still slow down anybody who wants to make a generic by tying them up in court), hundreds of them for EVERY DRUG THEY HAVE then take the generic drug companies to court over and over and over to delay the generic coming to market.
Here's another example of one of these stupid patents:
Completely nonsensical patent that's just meant to delay the release of a genericAstraZeneca, attempting to extend its monopoly, filed a new patent claim describing how Prilosec could be sprinkled on applesauce for use by patients who have trouble swallowing pills. Under Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rules, this meant that would-be generic competitors would have to prove that their versions would behave the same way when sprinkled on applesauce. Overcoming this hurdle will require more testing and cause more delays, preventing patients who can swallow pills from getting cheaper drugs.
If the drug companies played fair and didn't use advertising to push the exact same drug to you at 10x the price of an existing drug I wouldn't care if they advertised. New drugs that are actually huge improvements should be made known to people, and there's nothing wrong with that. There *is* something wrong though, with making people think your "new" drug is better than your old one when it gets beaten in half the tests by the old one, and costs 10x as much. There *is* something wrong with filing tons of patents over the most nonsensical of things (and I know I seem like I'm picking on AstraZeneca but this patent BS applies to all of big pharma...all of them file the most absurd patents), just to force generic manufacturers to have to go to court over whether or not their pill can be sprinkled on applesauce too.
Oh here's another company using the applesauce trick (I guess everyone uses the applesauce trick, lol):
Currently, the FDA is considering a petition from American Home Products Corp., Madison, N.J., against the generic version of the hypertension drug Verelan, called verapamil. Verapamil already has been shown to dissolve in the bloodstream at essentially the same rate as the brand product when in capsule form. But American Home says an additional test is necessary: It wants the generic company to sprinkle the drug on applesauce, have patients ingest it, and measure how fast it is absorbed. That is because the Verelan label says the medicine can "be administered by carefully opening the capsule and sprinkling the pellets on a spoonful of applesauce." Toronto-based Biovail Corp., the generic maker, says it believes it has successfully completed the applesauce test.
Even when petitions fail, they can keep generic drugs off the market for months or years. At least 40 were filed between 1990 and 1997 against generic drugs. Of the 29 already decided, 24 were rejected by the FDA. But it took the agency between seven months and four years to approve the generic drugs in question after the petitions were filed.
And btw, comparing them to car companies isn't entirely fair. They don't advertise that their new car pollutes less when it in fact pollutes more, or that the new car has more horsepower when it has the same horsepower. No, they actually make the engines more powerful, make cars get better mileage, and generally improve the cars whenever a new model comes out, or their competition would take their market share. If car companies tried to sell you the exact same cars year after year without actually improving them, and tried to keep other carmakers from competing with ridiculous patents you would be pretty pissed off no?