Kouknas 1

Nikki Kouknas
English 106
Ms. Biesiada
March 26, 2015
Pharmaceutical Ethics
Corporate executives and business owners need to realize that there can be no
compromise when it comes to ethics, and there are no easy shortcuts to success. Ethics need to
be carefully sown into the fabric of their companies, claims entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa (np).
There is no better explanation of ethics for society or the pharmaceutical industry
specifically. Some pharmaceutical companies fail to release all data collected during
experiments and trials. This is a problem because all research conducted should be available to
the public no matter what the results of an experiment are. They use manipulation and
representatives to sell their products to physicians and the general public. This paper will discuss
the various problems in the industry dealing with the code of ethics and how it can be resolved
through mandatory procedures.
Drug companies use many different tactics to put out their drugs to physicians who will
in turn prescribe these drugs to their patients. John Abromson, a doctor and author, discusses
how different pharmaceutical companies are able to sell their products. There is a practice of gift
giving that happens between the company representatives and the physicians. It is a way to form
a bond between the two. The drug companies will wine and dine, do anything to win over the
hearts of doctors in hopes that they will use their drugs. Gift giving disrupts the ethical standards
of all parties involved. In recent years, a movement has been made for doctors to pledge
commitment to saying no to promotional gifts. This pledge is known as the no free lunch
pledge (Abromson 126). In making this pledge, doctors agree to not be swayed by the extra
benefits companies give them to hear their seminars on new drugs. One doctor talks about his

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personal experience as a representative to a drug company as well as his thoughts about other
representatives. Dr. Carlat is a psychiatrist and for a period of time was a drug representative for
a company called Wyeth. While listening to one speaker the doctor thinks to himself, I
wondered whether his positive opinion had been influenced by the money he was paid to give
talks (Carlat 2). Dr. Carlat sees the effects of what paying other doctors to give talks does. It
causes them to repeat only the positive sides of drugs, because they know that if they dont sell
the drug, they will not get paid by the companies.
Other marketing tactics companies use includes tracking records. Abromson again states
another point of conflict pharmaceutical companies make; Through the purchase of pharmacy
records, companies are often able to track which physicians prescribe which medications for
their patients. This information can then be used to personalize the marketing strategy in meeting
with physicians (Abromson 126). Companies can use this information to tailor their
arguments to the doctor in hopes of convincing them to help sell the industrys products.
Tracking the records of what physicians purchase and prescribe to patients is highly unethical.
Companies are able to see what the doctor is buying and how much of it. It pries into the publics
lives and is a violation of privacy. With this information drug companies can give the physicians
the parts they only want to hear, which is what the benefits of the drug is. Dr. Carlat writes about
how surprised he was to find how much drug companies really know about the physician they
are selling to. He says, Specialized pharmacy-information companies (like IMS Health and
Verispan) buy prescription data from local pharmacies, repackage it, then sell it to
pharmaceutical companies (Carlat 5). With this information companies and representatives can
change certain details to appeal to specific doctors that will encourage them to buy the

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companys product. The selling tactics companies use need to be changed. It is not right to sell
the physician a drug with lavish outings, nor to look through their records.
Companies have a set of principles to abide by that are supposed to make what they do
for the public safe. However, many companies do not follow their own rules and principals.
Often there are loop holes they can jump through that can avoid showing everything and the
possible penalties that would come along with it. Leonard Weber takes notice of the implications
caused by withholding information. He states, Stopping the research prematurely prevents it
from providing any useful medical information and thus breaks covenant with the volunteer
participants; it exposes them to some risk without a justifying benefit of valid medical
knowledge (Weber 120). By ending a clinical trial or test early, researchers could put patients at
risk. The researchers may see the short term effects of the study and conclude that the drug is
safe and helpful, but they do not run it to see the long term effects. They use the information they
want and discard the rest. He continues to state what an ethical reason would be for ending an
experiment early; The legitimate reasons for stopping a clinical trial early include safety
concerns and insufficient patient enrollment. These decisions should be made by an independent
data and safety monitoring board (DSMB), not by the sponsors (Weber 120). Sometimes there
are legitimate reasons for ending a trial early. If someone finds out that the drug is completely
useless or puts the participant in danger, the experiment can be stopped. If the patients privacy is
compromised or there are no longer enough participants in the experiment to give enough
accurate information are other reasons why an experiment would end early. There can be ethical
reasons as to why someone would want to end a trial early, however, stopping them because the
researcher doesnt want to see the negative effects is not one of them.

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In an effort to solve the ethics problem, those concerned with the way companies are
handling things are pushing the ethics agenda. This agenda looks to accomplish the following: to
look at the relationships between the pharmaceutical industry and physicians around the country,
to show what the companys ethics and goals are when it comes to selling their medications to
the patients, to reevaluate the standards that physicians should follow and be protected by, to
encourage the public to question the pharmaceutical companies thoroughly and constantly, and
finally to be able promote overall good ethics in the pharmaceutical industry (Hoffman 493).
With these rules set in place, the pharmaceutical industry can be held more accountable for its
actions. It will also force the public to be adamant with how the industry acts. Continuing on
Weber also states, The public should demand that pharmaceutical companies assess their reward
practices for sales representatives to ensure that they are truly rewarding the kind of behavior,
and only the kind of behavior, that is compatible with the scientific and service nature of medical
practice (Weber 51). By following this idea, the notion of the no free lunch pledge comes back.
Instead of rewarding physicians for advertising and selling the product, they will be rewarded for
giving accurate and honest information.
In conclusion, it is important to hold pharmaceutical companies and their representatives
accountable for doing the ethical thing. The public must see that pampering physicians is wrong,
and can lead to dangerous outcomes, such as prescribing drugs that are more harmful then they
are good. Companies should not be allowed to see doctors purchasing records. Researchers
should not end trials early or withhold information from the public. In order to fix all these
problems, people should push for an ethical agenda that will make companies more honest and
safe.

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Works Cited
Abramson, John . Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine (New York:
HarperCollins, 2004). Web. 6 March 2015.
Carlat, Daniel. Dr. Drug Rep. The New York Times. The New York Times, 24 Nov. 2007. Web.
Mar 2015.
"Ethics Quotes." BrainyQuote. Xplore, n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2015.
Hoffman, Michael W.. Business and Environmental Ethics, In Business Ethics for the 21st
Century, Ed. David M. Adams and Edward W. Maine. Mountain View, California:
Mayfield, 1998. Web. 6 March 2015.
Weber, Leonard J.. Profits Before People? : Ethical Standards and the Marketing of Prescription
Drugs. Bloomington, IN, USA: Indiana University Press, 2006. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 5
March 2015.