Peddling paranoia: selling cures for imaginary diseases is where the drug industry really rakes in the cash, argues Alan Cassels. Real need barely enters the picture - Skewing the Market

And the marketers are getting involved earlier in a drug's development to make sure things turn out as profitable as possible. Kim White, the managing director of the New York office of Ogilvy Public Relations, says that the pre-launch marketing strategies for many of the new mass-market medications will include company-funded education of doctors and consumers long before the drug is launched. The job of the PR company, she says, is to 'beat the drum', to use conferences and journals to get doctors and consumers buzzing about a new drug coming down the pipe. (3)

Often, patient groups or medical foundations--so-called 'third-party' organizations--are funded to participate in these campaigns, silently orchestrated by drug company marketing departments and their PR houses.

I'm reminded of Willie Sutton, who spent his career robbing banks, escaping from jail, only to rob again. When he was asked at the end of his career why he kept on robbing banks, his nonchalant reply was: 'Because that's where the money is.' That could explain why drug companies spend so freely on marketing and disease mongering instead of lifesaving research.

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(1) David Goetzl in Advertising Age, 26 June 2000. (2) Deborah Socolar and Alan Sager, 'Pharmaceutical marketing and research spending: the evidence does not support PhRMA's claims', Boston University School of Public Health. (3) Interview with author.

Alan Cassels is a drug policy researcher in Victoria, BC, Canada. He led a team of researchers which produced Canada's first evaluation of the quality of media reporting of prescription drugs.

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