WHY I DECLINED AN INVITATION TO A DRUG COMPANY SEMINAR

Dear All
Assalam o allikum

hope you are fine.... Very often we are approached by these phramaceutical companies for a free lunch/ dinner... free medical seminar ... free entertaintment and many other things ( which are again free)....But has any of us thought for a moment that who is actually paying for all of this free stuff and is it Ethically and Morally right to say yes to every offer these companies and phramaceutical cartels have to make

I recently came across an artcile by a renowned psychiatrist from Agha Kha University giving the reasons that why he would not atend these sposored seminars

You may or may not agree with what he says but it is worth reading


WHY I DECLINED AN INVITATION TO A DRUG COMPANY SEMINAR

By Dr Murad Moosa Khan

Professor of Psychiatry

The Aga Khan University

I was recently invited by a pharmaceutical company to a seminar in a five star hotel in Pakistan. The seminar was on mental health, and the company had invited a .foreign
Speaker to talk on the subject. I declined the invitation. These were the reasons I gave:

Thank you for your invitation which for ethical reasons I have to decline.
· I consider all interactions of physicians with pharmaceutical companies unethical and a cause of serious conflict of interest.
· I also do not accept any gifts, large or small, in any shape, form or size from any drug company.
· I do not attend pharmaceutical company sponsored seminars (such as the one you are arranging) or go on .drug launches.
· Or attend conferences at drug companies. Expense. I consider all such activities as a form of bribery by pharmaceutical companies to physicians. .
You will be spending a huge amount of money in flying over your .foreign speaker. (probably business class), lodging him in a five star hotel and paying him a hefty honorarium. How much would the whole exercise cost? And what will be the outcome? How will you recoup the money? Your motive is to make psychiatrists prescribe more of your drugs, thereby increasing your sales, giving you and your management huge bonuses.
“And who will pay for these drugs? Patients and their families, of course—as most health care in Pakistan is out-of-pocket expenditure.
“I strongly condemn these kinds of activities whose principal motive is to advertise your drugs and make greedy physicians prescribe more of them. I say greedy because the temptation of having lunch and dinner in a five star hotel will be something very few doctors can resist. Why can’t you hold the seminar in a shamiana (marquee) in a katchi abadi (slum or low income area), where most of our patients with depression and schizophrenia reside?
“And how much does the company know about the mental health problems of
Pakistan? What do you know about depression and schizophrenia in Pakistan and the critical issues that affect these conditions in our culture—issues such as social deprivation, the levels of poverty, the corruption, lack of recourse to justice and severely compromised position of women in our society? How much do you know about the abysmal mental health system of this country and how it affects the management of serious psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression?
Do you realise that there is no budget for mental health in Pakistan? That many families have to keep a patient with schizophrenia tied by chains because they cannot afford the cost of simple medications? Are you aware that many patients have to travel hundreds of miles in heat and dust from the interior of the country to visit a psychiatrist in the city? And that, except in a handful, psychiatry is neither taught nor examined as a separate discipline in any medical college in Pakistan? And those generations of Pakistani doctors have gone through medical training with no exposure to mental health issues?



[Edited by drrathore on 01-03-2008 at 03:32 AM GMT]

Posted by: drrathorePosts: 428 :: 01-03-2008 :: | Reply to this Message

Re: WHY I DECLINED AN INVITATION TO A DRUG COMPANY SEMINAR

He is very right!

quote:

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.......Or attend conferences at drug companies. Expense. I consider all such activities as a form of bribery by pharmaceutical companies to physicians.....

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It is not only bribery but also cutting the pockets of the purchaser (patient) of their product to meet such expenses by the companies.

If aim of a doctor is only to earn money, there are many other fields which require quite less hardwork than becomming a doctor.

Posted by: imtiazkPosts: 56 :: 01-03-2008 :: | Reply to this Message

Re: Re: WHY I DECLINED AN INVITATION TO A DRUG COMPANY SEMINAR

Well
i think there are two aspects of such advertisement of a drug from a company.
1-they formulate a new drug that is more effective and they want that most the doctors know about that and should prescribe that.
2-They want that they call doctors, so that they make them happy and then doctors prescribe thier durgs and so they get extra benifit out of it.

well, unfortunatly in Pakistan, this trend is not only in pharmaceutical area, but it is present in all over, like marketing of pesticides and herbicides to dealers and so on. and the main purpose is what i mentioned in point no. 2. to earn money from the pocket of poor people.

this is not one of the area. as you know very well that about Medical Labortories that by asking for test from a particular lab, doctor get thier commission, no matter the lab is well reputed or not. and all of you know that every lab person have to go to doctors first.
what do you think? is it good? is this trend is not prevailed in Pakistan? its there.
so who is getting benifit out of it. and who think about the poor patient, who is asked to go for the tests, if there is even no need for test in somecases.
So being the young generation of Pakistan. i will request all my colleages to plz think over these issues and condemn these, so that we all could get the respect of our profession.
We have to work to stop these things, and we have to start from our own. we must think about the poor people, who dont know these things. we have to guide them.

May All of you get good achievements in your life.


regards
aftab

Posted by: aftabacPosts: 271 :: 02-03-2008 :: | Reply to this Message

Re: WHY I DECLINED AN INVITATION TO A DRUG COMPANY SEMINAR

If my memory serves me well, I have read this post somewhere several months ago.

Posted by: rqayyumPosts: 199 :: 03-03-2008 :: | Reply to this Message

Re: Re: WHY I DECLINED AN INVITATION TO A DRUG COMPANY SEMINAR

Yes sir

this article first appeared in The Drug Watch published by the Network for consumers Protection , Islamabad and recently it was also published in the news letter of AAPS England

But since it is on such an important topic, which we do not consider imp so i posted it on this forum

regards

Farooq

Posted by: drrathorePosts: 428 :: 04-03-2008 :: | Reply to this Message