Doctors in Denial: Why Big Pharma and the Canadian medical profession are too close for comfortDoctors in Denial examines the relationship between the Canadian medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry, and explains how doctors have become dependents of the drug companies instead of champions of patients' health. Big Pharma plays a role in every aspect of doctors' work. These giant, wealthy multinationals influence how medical students are trained and receive information, how research is done in hospitals and universities, what is published in leading medical journals, what drugs are approved, and what patients expect when they go into their doctors' offices. But almost all doctors deny the influence and control the drug companies exert. In this book Dr. Lexchin urges the medical profession to make the changes needed to give priority to protecting and promoting patients' health and benefitting society, rather than enabling Big Pharma to dominate health care while raking in billions in profits from citizens and governments. |
Contents
Tables Figures and Boxes | 7 |
Abbreviations | 9 |
Foreword | 11 |
welcome to the comfort zone | 19 |
a marriage of convenience or a marriage made in heaven? | 31 |
ménage à trois | 43 |
Chapter 3 Medical journals advertisements money regulation rebellion and possibly retrenchment | 65 |
research money controversies conflict of interest and independence | 97 |
a guide to salvation? | 149 |
get them while they are young | 182 |
Chapter 8 Doctors sales representatives samples gifts trips and dinners | 206 |
Chapter 9 Dont worry be happy? | 233 |
Chapter 10 Reforming the comfort zone so that doctors are no longer in denial | 251 |
Acknowledgements | 291 |
References | 296 |
| 338 | |