Pharma Insider Part I

Off-label promotion under the radar

Physicians can prescribe drugs off-label (for non-FDA-approved uses), but it is illegal for pharmaceutical companies to promote drugs off-label. Douglas Melnick, MD MPH, a former pharma insider, tells Adriane Fugh-Berman, MD how companies get around the bans. Medical science liaisons are company doctors and pharmacists that can legally answer questions about off-label use, so drug reps may coax questions about off-label uses from doctors, and then refer those questions to MSLs. Company representatives also manipulate compendia, which are compilations of drug uses - including off-label uses - that are used by insurers to determine what drugs to pay for. Dr. Melnick, a preventive medicine physician, is a consultant to PharmedOut.org, a publicly funded project to educate physicians about inappropriate pharmaceutical promotion. Dr. Fugh-Berman is the principal investigator of PharmedOut.org. Transcript of this video is available at http://www.pharmedout.org.

PharmedOut is an independent project funded through the Attorney General Consumer and Prescriber Education grant program that educates physicians on how pharmaceutical companies influence prescribing.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• PharmedOut
• pharmaceutical
• pharma
• off-label
• medicine
• compendia
• MSLs
• physicians
• pharma-free

[thomasalanwoolley]

EFT has about as much pseudo science behind it as actual psychiatry. There is no truth or proof or study that shows it works just like psych meds. They are all snake oil sales men pushing their particular tactic based on what??? Nothing.

[gigiontube]

@thomasalanwoolley

Get educated about EFT. You will be amazed of the results with it.

Search EFT Gary Craig. The manual is available for free at their web site.

[EdwardPlatt]

All you pharmaceutical sales reps should be ashamed of yourselves. Your bonus is often based  on causing more pain and even death for the patients of doctors who you help brainwash. Have you no sense of decency?

[thomasalanwoolley]

I've been a patient of "owned" psychiatrists. They are prone to flattery and grandstanding. My last psychiatrist had me on 8 different designer meds in one year claiming there were NO side effects to just switching things up. He was VERY wrong. Thankfully now, I have a shrink that acts with ethics who works with me and not for BigPharma. It has made all the difference in my stability. I have not, since seeing him, been in the psych ward since October. BigPharma is an evil money machine

[allthings509]

@RockDoc50 Pharma is just a big Mafia, but I guess you know that (being one of them).

[allthings509]

@golfgal94 Don't worry about it Ms Loser"golfgal" go watch your stupid golf like a good moron.

[RockDoc50]

Biased and inaccurate anti-pharma propoganda. 

[golfgal94]

who are these losers???