Kouknas 1

Nikki Kouknas
English 106
Ms. Biesiada
March 9, 2015
Pharmaceutical Ethics
Corporate executives and business owners need to realize that there can be no
compromise when it comes to ethics, and there are no easy shortcuts to success. Ethics need to
be carefully sown into the fabric of their companies, claims entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa.
There is no better explanation of ethics for society or the pharmaceutical industry specifically.
Some pharmaceutical companies fail to release all data collected during experiments and trials.
They use manipulation and representatives to sell their products to physicians and the general
public. A question of ethics surfaces and must be addressed, using articles and research.
Drug companies use many different tactics to put out their drugs to physicians who will
in turn prescribe these drugs to their patients. There is a practice of gift giving that happens
between the company representatives and the physicians. It is a way to form a bond between the
two. The drug companies will wine and dine, do anything to win over the hearts of doctors in
hopes that they will use their drugs. Gift giving disrupts the ethical standards of all parties
involved. In recent years, a movement has been made for doctors to pledge commitment to
saying no to promotional gifts. This pledge is known as the no free lunch pledge. Other
marketing tactics companies use includes tracking records. Abromson again states another point
of conflict pharmaceutical companies make; Through the purchase of pharmacy records,
companies are often able to track which physicians prescribe which medications for their
patients. This information can then be used to personalize the marketing strategy in meeting with
physicians (Abromson 126).

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Companies have a set of principles to abide by. Often there are loop holes they can jump
through that can avoid showing everything and the possible penalties that would come along
with it. Stopping the research prematurely prevents it from providing any useful medical
information and thus breaks covenant with the volunteer participants; it exposes them to some
risk without a justifying benefit of valid medical knowledge (Weber 120). The legitimate
reasons for stopping a clinical trial early include safety concerns and insufficient patient
enrollment. These decisions should be made by an independent data and safety monitoring board
(DSMB), not by the sponsors (Weber 120).
In an effort to solve the ethics problem, many are pushing the ethics agenda. This
agenda looks to accomplish the following: to look at the relationships between the
pharmaceutical industry and physicians around the country, to show what the companys ethics
and goals are when it comes to selling their medications to the patients, to reevaluate the
standards that physicians should follow and be protected by, to encourage the public to question
the pharmaceutical companies thoroughly and constantly, and finally to be able promote overall
good ethics in the pharmaceutical industry. (Hoffman 493). The public should demand that
pharmaceutical companies assess their reward practices for sales representatives to ensure that
they are truly rewarding the kind of behavior, and only the kind of behavior, that is compatible
with the scientific and service nature of medical practice (Weber 51).
Conclusion needed, explanation needed

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Works Cited
Abramson, John . Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine (New York:
HarperCollins, 2004). Web. 6 March 2015.
Carlat, Daniel. Dr. Drug Rep. The New York Times. The New York Times, 24 Nov. 2007. Web.
Mar 2015.
"Ethics Quotes." BrainyQuote. Xplore, n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2015.
Hoffman, Michael W.. Business and Environmental Ethics, In Business Ethics for the 21st
Century, Ed. David M. Adams and Edward W. Maine. Mountain View, California: Mayfield,
1998. Web. 6 March 2015.
Weber, Leonard J.. Profits Before People? : Ethical Standards and the Marketing of Prescription
Drugs. Bloomington, IN, USA: Indiana University Press, 2006. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 5 March
2015.