Deception by Design: Pharmaceutical Promotion in the Third World

Abstract

Joel Lexchin Consumers International Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, $15 + postage, pp 91 ISBN 967 9973 68 9 Developing countries are being flooded with drugs, most of which are useless, expensive, or dangerous. All too often the pharmaceutical industry's promotion of drugs leads to irrational prescribing by doctors. Companies spend about 20-30% of their sales budget on promotion, providing free samples to doctors to create demand for their products. In recent years in many developing countries with developing market economies, prices of medicines have sometimes risen by 400-500%. The main sources of information on new and existing products are the drug companies, either through mailings or visits by …