"Academic detailing" programs could counter tactics used by pharmaceutical sales representatives to promote their products among physicians, Senate Special Committee on Aging Chair Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) said at a committee hearing on Wednesday, CQ HealthBeat reports. At the hearing, Kohl said, "Pharmaceutical reps often confuse educating with selling, and evidence shows that doctors' prescribing patterns can be heavily influenced by these sales representatives."

Shahram Ahari, a former sales representative for Eli Lilly, testified at the hearing to offer "an insider's perspective" on marketing strategies used by pharmaceutical companies, CQ HealthBeat reports. In a letter to Congress released at the hearing, Ahari said that soon after he was employed, "it became clearly apparent that a drug sale had much more to do with establishing personal relationships than it did with understanding the latest science," which led to a "skewed understanding of the pharmacology, poor prescribing practices and compromised medical professionalism."

Jerry Avorn, a Harvard Medical School professor who also testified at the hearing, said that as a result of pharmaceutical sales reps tactics, "doctors more and more prescribe the drugs that are the most heavily promoted, not necessarily the ones that would be the safest, or best or most cost-effective for their patients." Other witnesses at the hearing said counterdetailing programs that seek to provide noncommercial education to physicians and pharmacists about drugs could save billions of dollars annually by promoting broader use of generic medications.

Kohl said that he would introduce legislation this year with Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) that would establish grants for counterdetailing programs. Kohl said that one grant program would help create training material to inform physicians about safety elements and comparative effectiveness of different medications, and a second program would send trained health care professionals to physician offices to provide the information to physicians.

Industry Reaction
In a statement on Wednesday, Ken Johnson, senior vice president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said that "counterdetailing programs sponsored by state and local governments, to date, have been marred by potential pitfalls." He added that sales representatives "must comply with strict [FDA] regulations" and "must ensure that the information they convey to physicians is accurate and consistent with FDA-approved pharmaceutical product labeling" (Reichard, CQ HealthBeat, 3/12).

Reprinted with kind permission from kaisernetwork. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at kaisernetwork/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.