Perhaps in honor of the recently concluded meeting organized by Dr Adriene Fugh-Berman and her colleagues at PharmedOut.org on the pharmaceutical industry and its influence on continuing medical education, three significant posts appeared this week about deceptive pharmaceutical marketing practices.
On the Health Business Blog, David Williams analyzed how a former pharmaceutical and biotechnology executive spun the Vioxx case, blaming it all on the public's risk aversion.
On the Hooked: Ethics, Medicine and Pharma Blog, Dr Howard Brody summarized two significant articles by Kalman Applbaum on complex psychological campaigns, really versions of disinformation campaigns, used to to market pharmaceuticals.
On the Carlat Psychiatry Blog, Dr Daniel Carlat published a letter about life at a medical school department lead by Dr Charles Nemeroff, one of the "key opinion leaders" most lavishly paid by pharmaceutical companies to help them market questionable drugs for questionable reasons, and giving observations on Dr Nemeroff's new career.