

Lessons Learned from a Pharma-Free Practice Transformation - elleferrer
http://www.jabfm.org/content/26/3/332.long

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_The Truth About the Drug Companies by Marcia Angell was read and discussed._

The fact that Marcia Angell's book was required reading pretty much tells you
everything you need to know about the clinic's culture.

Angell's book is a terribly one sided and highly inaccurate depiction of the
pharma industry. She has made statements that boggle the mind of anyone
familiar with how the industry operates.

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sveme
I'm somewhat familiar with industry practices (worked on software for the
pharma industry) and just read 'Bad Pharma' by Ben Goldacre. It is a pretty
well sourced and argued description of practices in the pharma industry and I
haven't seen any worthy rebuttal of his arguments.

I'm not familiar with Marcia Angell's book, would you care to elaborate on
those 'statements that boggle the mind'?

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refurb
Probably one of the better critiques of Angell's statements is Derek Lowe, an
R&D chemist in the pharmaceutical industry.

[http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2012/12/03/marcia_angel...](http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2012/12/03/marcia_angells_interview_i_just_cant.php)

I have no problem if someone disagrees with the pharmaceutical industry on a
fundamental level (i.e. "there should be no profit in healthcare"), but if you
start spreading misinformation and half-truths, I lose a lot of respect for
that person.

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sveme
Interesting, thanks. Though not having read her book, one of the critiques
seem to be that pharma companies spent a disproportionate amount on marketing
and sales. And that is something I have to agree with. At the moment it looks
like the industry is closing research facilities all the time one of their
drugs falls from the patent cliff while keeping marketing budgets untouched.
Looking at the research organization and the innovation of their approaches, I
must say that they are vastly behind and extremely conservative. Novartis
seems to be doing it right, though.

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uslic001
Doctors can't even accept a pen from the pharma industry anymore. This paper
is about 20 years past when it would have helped make a difference.

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temphn
The paper here is completely backwards. It is because of the AMA, HHS, FDA and
the rest that doctors spend 30 years getting licensed. After this point they
are isolated, and kept separate from the rest of the medical supply chain
(drugs, devices, imaging, diagnostics). Try doing it full stack and see how
quickly the attorney general comes at you for competing with the local
hospital. Doctors are also kept in the dark about prices, though are all too
happy to accept high salaries. This set of affairs is one of the contributors
to spiraling costs. No one wants to admit that health care has a price, and
that the scarcity of (say) MRI machine time will either be allocated by market
mechanisms or by queues and politics.

