Melissa Healy's series examining the pharmaceutical industry's influence on doctors and patients ignores a key reality. Physicians have absolute control over their relationship with Big Pharma by virtue of their professional monopoly on prescribing medicines.
However, the life-changing pharmaceutical breakthroughs resulting from the trillions of dollars that investors have risked in pharmaceutical research have occurred only in the last six decades.
Only one in many thousands of molecules will result in a commercially viable medicine, and only one-third of those earn enough to make a profit.
It is not surprising that people who risk their savings this way demand that their employees, the pharmaceutical executives, make every effort possible to get successful medicines to the patients they would benefit.
Sales, marketing and advertising are necessary for competition and innovation in any human activity. The legislative and regulatory interference Healy describes will only reduce the funds available for medical research and development.
John R. Graham
San Francisco
Graham is director of health care studies for the Pacific Research Institute.
