Addressing herself again to the vulnerability of the Third World to exploitation, Dianna Melrose has produced on behalf of OXFAM a book [ Bitter Pills: Medicines and the Third World Poor ] which, like her earlier works [ The Great Health Robbery and Medicines and the Poor in Bangladesh ], is likely to provoke a brisk reaction from the pharmaceutical companies she attacks so vigorously... . She documents some examples of marketing techniques for the promotion of useless and even suspect products—practices that may hinder the effective delivery of appropriate drugs. A Brazilian senator and doctor decided to test just how much sales activity was directed at doctors: "For 21 working days he kept track of salesmen's visits to his clinic. He was visited on 18 of the 21 days by a total of 69 salesmen. He was given 452 free samples of drugs (after refusing extra quantities so as not to distort the counting); he received 25 gifts including coffee pots, notebooks, etc."One of the book's chief aims is to repeat that the cure for malnutrition is food and not vitamin pills. Three-quarters of the drugs manufactured by Glaxo and Fisons in Bangladesh are for nonessential multivitamins and tonics. When a doctor prescribes these products for a poor family, money is spent which would be better spent on food. Many of the companies' products are not licensed for sale in the West, where Government controls protect both the medical profession and the patient from the more obvious distortions of promotion... .
展开▼
