Marketing based medicine: how bad is it? - On Line Opinion - 7/7/2014

It should be the scandal of the century. It potentially affects the health of almost everyone. Healthcare providers and consumers alike should be up in arms. But apart from coverage in a few credible news sources the problem of Marketing Based Medicine, as psychiatrist Dr Peter Parry terms it, hasnt as yet generated the kind of universal outrage one might expect.

If you bought a new car and there was only a one in twelve chance that it would work properly, how would you feel? And what if there was a one in three chance that it was downright dangerous? Faced by these sorts of statistics, most consumers would be furious. And yet according to an articlein the 'Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics', entitled 'Institutional Corruption of Pharmaceuticals and the Myth of Safe and Effective Drugs' this may well be the state of affairs with pharmaceutical products.. The "…..proportion of new products with clinical advantages seems to have moved from about 1 in 8 down to 1 in 12, while the proportion with serious harms has gone up from 1 in 5 towards 1 in 3 ......"

Strangely a public outcry seems slow coming.

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