Most markets are organized around the interests of consumers and corporations spend huge sums of money on market research to discover what consumers want and how to sell it to them. When it comes to healthcare - what patients want is simple. The best treatment, with the fewest side-effects at the best price.
Now what are the experts in the field of healthcare busy doing?
Pharma Reps are given five-figure (use-it-or-lose-it) expense accounts to schmooze doctors and try and convince them to prescribe their own company’s treatments, regardless of what is best for the patient. “My companies drug…” It doesn’t matter if it’s the best at treating your condition, it doesn’t matter if the side-effects are worse than a competitor’s drug, and - as a Pharma Rep - I certainly wouldn’t want to inform you if an older, cheaper, generic drug which is out of patent and has a better known safety profile will do the same job. It’s simply not what I’m employed to do.
It’s therefore obvious therefore that the interests of patients are diametrically opposed to the interests of Pharma Reps. The very role of Pharma Reps is to create a fog-of-war by sullying the evidence and then charm and bamboozle doctors with cherry-picked data into believing their treatment is best - regardless of the facts. Rather than aid in the project of getting patients the best treatment, their job is to make evidence-based prescribing harder. They are a glaring symptom of outrageous dysfunction in the medical system. They shouldn’t even exist. The fact they command six-figure salaries should be considered abominable. Something comparable to prescribing treatments known to be harmful for financial gain.
Clearly, the only people informing doctors on what to prescribe should be impartial authorities trying to get at the truth. People representing the desire of patients to access the safest and most effective treatments. But that’s not how it works in the real world. Almost all continuing medical education conferences are funded by pharma. Who is going to represent the public when almost all the money behind studies in medicine is Pharma money intended to further the interests of the manufacturer? In competitive drug trials, the drug of whoever funds the study almost always comes out on top!
Wouldn’t it be good if all this propaganda money was turned over to paying experts sift through the evidence to ascertain good studies from bad and collate data so that doctors and patients could be advised according to it? They could highlight where more research is needed and inform journals and regulators of where science has been compromised. All the money necessary is there to do it - it’s just going to the wrong people!
Guess who doesn’t get a six-figure salary or a five-figure (use-it-or-lose-it) expense account.
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Very insightful, Antony! Sales truly changes the belief system of the salesperson, too.
If you ask a pharma salesperson about their drugs while they're off the clock, they're likely to still go into sales mode and stand by their drugs. But after that same person finds another job, they usually quickly feel differently about those drugs. As the saying goes, "Don't bite the hand that feeds you."
And if you're looking for more ideas for future articles, maybe this new Lauren Southern mini-doc will spark your interest:
https://rumble.com/v4778e3-the-truth-behind-the-ozempic-craze-lauren-southern.html
Drug reps are convenient scapegoats. But specialized salespeople are an important part of a modern market economy. The real roots of the problem are government-imposed: licensing, special liability protections for pharma companies, and third-party payment, to name a few.
I am retired from my CNC machining business. Metal-cutting tool companies have reps too, and they are experts on the latest high-tech tool materials and geometries. They were always allies ready to help me complete a difficult job at a profit. The difference is that I was in business for myself, not an employee cog in a gigantic medical conglomerate, as most doctors are today. I paid for my supplies with my own money, and my customers paid me with their own money. Any tooling company that didn't deliver on its reps' promises wouldn't be in business long. Neither my competitors nor I nor our suppliers had to be licensed by any government bureaucracy, and any shop that couldn't compete with others on quality and price would be out of business in short order.
We need an unfettered market in medical care where patients pay for their own stuff and reward practitioners who do the best job of creating the highest-quality outcomes at the lowest price.