prescription for one drug over another? You bet. Medical students, at
least, fall prey to the influence of drug company trinkets, says a
study published today in Archives of Internal Medicine.
Big-ticket items, such as a fancy dinner or NBA tickets, might seem
like more powerful persuaders than a free ceramic mug. But the
researchers conclude that, in fact, "subtle branding exposures are
important and influential."
After mounting criticism, many drugmakers halted the flood of pens,
notepads and clipboards that kept doctors scribbling within sight of
brand-name medicines under a voluntary code adopted by the
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) in
January. Companies can still take doctors out (as long as there's an
'educational' component to the event) and funnel gifts to those in
school.
The study of tsotchkes, led by David Grande, an assistant professor
of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, shows that even the
smallest item with a logo can influence the preference for one kind
of drug, especially in students who receive promotional materials at
school already.
To test the effectiveness of the small freebies, Grande and his team
had half of the 352 med school test subjects register sign in for the
testing session on a clipboard and notepad bearing the logo for
Lipitor, Pfizer's heavily promoted cholesterol-lowering drug. The
other half of the subjects used plain clipboards and notepads.
The student came from the University of Miami Miller School of
Medicine, which allows drug companies to distribute gifts, and the
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where drug company
goodies are verboten.
After analyzing the students' attitudes toward Lipitor and the
competing generic simvastatin (sold by Merck as Zocor), the
researchers found that although most students preferred Lipitor,
fourth-year students from Miami (where gifts are allowed) had the
highest preference for the drug.
Pardoxically, the Lipitor exposure before the test made fourth-years
from Penn, unaccustomed to freebies, favor the brand less.
"Institutional policies can reverse the effects of drug marketing
tactics," Philip Greenland, chairman of preventive medicine and
professor at the Northwestern University's Feinberg School of
Medicine, writes in an accompanying editorial. "Data suggest that
adopting these more restrictive policies will reverse longstanding
adverse trends of physicians' prescribing habits," he concludes.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?
id=drug-company-schwag-sways-med-stude-2009-05-11
