scholarly journals Health Advocacy Organizations and the Pharmaceutical Industry: An Analysis of Disclosure Practices

2011 ◽  
Vol 101 (4) ◽  
pp. 602-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheila M. Rothman ◽  
Victoria H. Raveis ◽  
Anne Friedman ◽  
David J. Rothman
Keyword(s):  
Pharmaceutical Industry ◽  
Advocacy Organizations ◽  
Health Advocacy

Corporate Colonization of Health Activism? Irish Health Advocacy Organizations' Modes of Engagement with Pharmaceutical Corporations

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 711-733 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orla O'Donovan
Keyword(s):  
Pharmaceutical Industry ◽  
Advocacy Organizations ◽  
Health Advocacy ◽  
Health Activism ◽  
Industry Sponsorship ◽  
Depth Study ◽  
Modes Of Interaction ◽  
Modes Of Engagement ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Corporate Colonization

This article is based on a study that aimed to shed light on the “cultures of action” of Irish health advocacy organizations, and particularly their modes of engagement with pharmaceutical corporations. Debates about what some interpret as the “corporate colonization” of health activism provide the backdrop for the analysis. The empirical dimension of the study involved a survey of 112 organizations and in-depth study of a small number of organizations that manifest diverse modes of engagement with the pharmaceutical industry. The varying modes of interaction are plotted along a continuum and characterized as corporatist, cautious cooperation, and confrontational. Evidence is presented of a strong and growing cultural tendency in Irish health advocacy organizations to frame pharmaceutical corporations as allies in their quests for better health. The analysis of four constitutive dimensions of organizations' cultures of action can reveal the legitimating logics underlying their diverging positions around pharmaceutical industry sponsorship. While the research shows that pharmaceutical corporations have largely succeeded in defining themselves as a philanthropic force and rightful players in Irish health activism, it cautions against a simplistic conclusion that this is evidence of corporate colonization.

scholarly journals Ghost-Managed Medicine

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio Sismondo
Keyword(s):  
Pharmaceutical Industry ◽  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
Advocacy Organizations ◽  
Research Education ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Drug Companies ◽  
Research Organizations ◽  
Political Economies ◽  
The Many

Ghost-Managed Medicine by Sergio Sismondo explores a spectral side of medical knowledge, based in pharmaceutical industry tactics and practices. Hidden from the public view, the many invisible hands of the pharmaceutical industry and its agents channel streams of drug information and knowledge from contract research organizations (that extract data from experimental bodies) to publication planners (who produce ghostwritten medical journal articles) to key opinion leaders (who are sent out to educate physicians about drugs) to patient advocacy organizations (who ventriloquize views on diseases, treatments and regulations), and onward. The goal of this ‘assemblage marketing’ is to establish conditions that make specific diagnoses, prescriptions and purchases as obvious and frequent as possible. While staying in the shadows, companies create powerful markets in which increasing numbers of people become sick and the drugs largely sell themselves. Most agents for drug companies aim to tell the truth, but the truths they tell are drawn from streams of knowledge that have been fed, channeled and maintained by the companies at every possible opportunity. Especially because those companies have concentrated influence and narrow interests, consumers and others should be concerned about how epistemic power is distributed – or ‘political economies of knowledge’ – and not just about truth and falsity of medical knowledge. In pharmaceutical companies’ ideal worlds, medical research, education and marketing would be tightly fused. Doctors trying to educate themselves would turn to companies’ agents, such as researchers and educators sponsored to spread particular messages, local sales reps hired to change doctors’ behaviour, or journalists supplied with news stories. Ghost-Managed Medicine shows that the real world of medicine is not very far from the worlds that the companies want to create. Big Pharma’s many invisible hands are busy throughout medicine, and medicine changes as a result.

Evidence-Based Practice and Health Advocacy Organizations

JAMA ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 306 (13) ◽  
pp. 1443 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorraine B. Johnson ◽  
Barbara E. Warren
Keyword(s):  
Evidence Based Practice ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Advocacy Organizations ◽  
Health Advocacy

Evidence-Based Practice and Health Advocacy Organizations

JAMA ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 306 (13) ◽  
pp. 1443-1443
Author(s):  
J. M. Perrin ◽  
J. K. Kolls ◽  
D. L. Coury
Keyword(s):  
Evidence Based Practice ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Advocacy Organizations ◽  
Health Advocacy
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