Hostname: page-component-68c7f8b79f-tw422 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-12-19T05:52:40.617Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Information

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists 2009 

Little Pharma made profits by making novel compounds; Big Pharma does it by marketing. Doctors say they consume (prescribe) medication according to the evidence, so marketeers design and run trials to increase a drug's use. They select the trials, data and authors that suit, publish in quality journals, facilitate incorporation in guidelines, then exhort doctors to practise evidence-based medicine. Because ‘they're worth it’, doctors consume branded high-cost but less effective ‘evidence-based’ derivatives of older compounds making these drugs worth more than their weight in gold. Posted parcels meanwhile are tracked far more accurately than adverse treatment effects on patients.

This journal is not currently accepting new eletters.

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.