FAILURE-TO-WARN: FACING UP TO THE REAL IMPACT OF PHARMACEUTICAL MARKETING ON THE PHYSICIAN'S DECISION TO PRESCRIBE
In: Tulsa Law Review, Jg. 50 (2014-07-01), S. 75
Online
academicJournal
Introduction Pharmaceuticals cure disease and prolong life. Their side effects, however, cause more than 100,000 deaths per year. 3 Pharmaceuticals are aptly recognized as "inherently dangerous" products that require special care in their use. Given these risks - and patients' reliance on physicians' judgment in prescribing pharmaceuticals - the warnings and marketing materials reaching physicians should be carefully regulated. In some respects, they are. The package insert accompanying each pharmaceutical is carefully vetted by the federal Food and Drug Administration. In a failure-to-warn lawsuit, this insert is decisive; a pharmaceutical company defendant can most often brandish the package insert and cut off liability via summary judgment. But another, perhaps more influential, source of information reliably reaches physicians. Pharmaceutical representatives' slick sales pitches to physicians amount to a billion-dollar campaign that can eclipse the lengthy written package insert whose minute text tends to remain unread. Unlike the colorless package insert, pharmaceutical representatives offer an alluring message often delivered by attractive individuals culled from the ranks of college cheerleading squads. 4 Pharmaceutical representatives make about 115 million physician sales calls per year. 5 Documents obtained in litigation and first-hand accounts show pharmaceutical representatives downplaying the very warnings described in the package insert. Nonetheless, pharmaceutical companies in failure-to-warn lawsuits are usually able to obtain summary judgment based purely on a package insert, while the overwhelming and effective warning-diluting marketing information is ignored. This article proposes that the failure-to-warn inquiry recognize pharmaceutical marketing's central role in many prescribing decisions. ...
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FAILURE-TO-WARN: FACING UP TO THE REAL IMPACT OF PHARMACEUTICAL MARKETING ON THE PHYSICIAN'S DECISION TO PRESCRIBE
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Autor/in / Beteiligte Person: | Vukadin, Katherine T. |
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Zeitschrift: | Tulsa Law Review, Jg. 50 (2014-07-01), S. 75 |
Veröffentlichung: | 2014 |
Medientyp: | academicJournal |
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