Advertising as Education: Carlat Hits Home Run

Daniel Carlat is the chief of the Carlat Report, a newsletter which provides CME credits for physicians and is (gasp) sometimes critical of the drug industry and its marketing practices.

Carlat has an op-ed in the New York Times where he presents several examples of how drug companies, in the name of education, have misled physicians. I'd like to summarize what he wrote, but he really said it best. Please check it out. It covers a lot of important material in relatively few words. He also has a simple solution -- any CME paid for by drug companies should not count for educational credit for physicians. I couldn't agree more!

As y'all know, I am highly critical of current CME practices, which allow physicians to maintain their medical licenses based upon their soaking up sugarcoated drug company advertising which masquerades as education. For examples, please read an earlier post on a pro-Geodon piece and a puff piece pushing transcranial magnetic stimulation for depression. I am very pleased that the Times ran Carlat's piece.

John Mack noted that the Drug Wonks blog (predictably) came to the rescue of Big Pharma by calling Carlat's piece "hysterical." Of course, Robert Goldberg (the Drug Wonks author in question) provided no evidence -- he also said

Oh, and if I were Carlat, I would drop the characterization "Unbiased" from the description of his expensive newsletter. He is as biased as anyone. Anyone who calls his colleagues money launderers is biased.

Oh gee, we're all biased, so who knows what's right? It's all so relativistic. Please. I think that many pharma bloggers (including myself), have marshaled sufficient evidence to indicate that Big Pharma has often placed marketing well ahead of patient benefit. For documentation, um, start reading a bunch of posts on this and similar sites. Yes, we're all biased to one extent or another -- that's why we should stick to facts rather than label industry critics as "hysterical" or worse. And the facts indicate that CME needs reform. Call me hysterical if you want.

Hat Tip: Furious Seasons

Pimping One's Blog Or Doing One's Duty?

I’ll open this post with some context. I really think John Mack has done great work at the Pharma Blogosphere and Pharma Marketing Blog sites However, that does not mean I always agree with his arguments. I’m not putting up this post in an attempt to start a “cat fight” with the good Mr. Mack; I just have to express my dissent.

Many bloggers linked to Peter Rost’s blog last week, and with damn good reason. He posted an excellent three-part series regarding a Pfizer whistleblower. And, making it yet more interesting, voodoo was allegedly involved. Mack took issue with bloggers linking to Rost, pointing out (accurately) that most who linked to Rost had little to add. I linked to Rost and admit that I added nothing to Rost’s story. Mack then stated that the reason fellow bloggers linked to Rost was because they wanted to increase their visibility, as Rost was nice enough to link back to sites that posted links to his site.

Well, allow me to differ. Do I like getting a little added traffic from Rost? You bet – I’ll take all the traffic I can get. But that is not the main reason I linked the story. I linked it because it is interesting and because I thought my readers should be exposed to it. The more exposure such a story gets, the better. After all, it appears that one thing that many pharma-related sites have in common is to shine light on dubious industry practices. Thus, I see linking to a blogger who is doing good investigative work as a large part of my blogging duties. Am I missing something?

Thank You Very Much!

While the full results from John Mack's Pharma Blogosphere Survey have yet to be released, he mentioned a few tidbits, one of which made my entire weekend:

CL Psych Blog: CL Psych Blog was rated as one of the TOP FIVE blogs in The Pharma Blogosphere in terms of readability, credibility, and usefulness. Not the highest in rank in any of those categories mind you, but right up there! Consequently, I have made it a point to check it out often.

My sincere thanks to all who voted in the survey. The positive feedback is much appreciated!