Big Pharma

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A lot of the public doesn’t realize how sophisticated the [pharmaceutical industry's] marketing techniques have become, really over the last 10 years… Essentially when a pharmaceutical company gets FDA approval for a drug, their marketing department can assure their bosses that they are going to be able to sell the drug, really whether the drug is effective or not.
Dr. Daniel Carlat, psychiatrist
Fresh Air, July 13, 2010

Emphasis in the final sentence is mine.

Dr. Carlat’s current book is Unhinged: The Trouble with Psychiatry – A Doctor’s Revelations about a Profession in Crisis. He was previously the author of a 2007 New York Times Magazine article entitled “Dr. Drug Rep,” about his experience being paid by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals to sing the praises of its anti-depressant Effexor to his colleagues; he also talks about it at length in the Fresh Air interview.

Carlat is a psychiatrist in private practice in Newburyport, Massachusetts, an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine, and the publisher of The Carlat Psychiatry Report. Oh, and he’s also a blogger. How he is all of these things at once I cannot fucking imagine.


The following is text I composed for the “Additional message to President Obama” field, after I had signed my name to CredoAction.com’s petition “Tell Obama: The public option is not optional.” I urge all of you who read this while the health care reform issue is still current to do the same. Unless you don’t agree with me. No, fuck that — if you don’t agree I still want you to sign it.

Health care reform has been the issue of greatest concern to me for a long time. Therefore, in the following I will make every effort to temper my vehement language and trust that you will pardon me if a mild profanity or two do creep in.

If you punt on the public option, this whole initiative will have been in vain. All that would be left in the bill would be the window dressing. Window dressing, without a bloody *window*! Read the rest of this entry »