An interesting article from Global News: Big pharma pours millions into medical schools. Here’s how it can impact education.
And pharma is doing much more than merely giving money. They’re writing the textbooks too:
“His main textbook for gastroenterology, First Principles of Gastroenterology, was published by pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. AstraZeneca makes drugs for conditions like asthma, blood pressure and cancer.
Along with another classmate, Abi-Jaoude started a petition against the pharma-funded material and began questioning if the industry was too involved in educating future doctors. He was concerned that companies with a conflict of financial interest were helping inform what students learned.”
And while this piece focuses on Canada, the phenomenon is worldwide. A supremely important article was written in 2009 in Pro Publica that focused on Pharma’s outsized influence at Harvard: Pharma Ties at Harvard Medical School:
“A first-year Harvard Medical student tells the Times:
Before coming here, I had no idea how much influence companies had on medical education. And it’s something that’s purposely meant to be under the table, providing information under the guise of education when that information is also presented for marketing purposes.”
Another study, published in 2013, also looked at this corrupt arrangement: Pharma influence widespread at medical schools
This is having the effect of transforming entire generations of doctors into glorified salesmen, retailing the latest products of the pharmaceutical giants. It’s particularly dangerous, because we grow up believing we can trust the unbiased opinion of our doctor, that they have our well-being in mind, rather than goodies and kick-backs from a powerful corporation.
