Profits before People?: Ethical Standards and the Marketing of Prescription Drugs

The pharmaceutical industry has come under intense criticism in recent
years. One poll found that 70% of the sample agreed that drug companies put profits
ahead of people. Is this perception accurate? Have drug companies traded ethics for
profits and placed people at risk?

In Profits before People?
Leonard J. Weber exposes pharmaceutical industry practices that have raised ethical
concerns. Providing systematic ethical analysis and reflection, he discusses such
practices as compensating physicians for serving as speakers or consultants,
providing incentives to physicians to enroll patients as subjects in clinical
research, and advertising prescription drugs to the public through the mass media.
Weber's critique of the industry is stern. While acknowledging that new industry
guidelines are promising, he finds much room for improvement in the way drug
companies market their products. Yet Weber makes a strong case that profits and
ethics can coexist and that they are not mutually exclusive.

In an
effort to understand the proper place of commerce in disseminating information about
new drugs, the book aims to clarify basic responsibilities and to help identify
sound ethical practices. It recognizes that ethics and law are not the same, that
"having a right" is different from "doing the right thing," and
that taking ethics seriously means recognizing that the law does not answer all
questions about what is right. Weber points the way to more demanding standards and
better practices that might begin to restore confidence in the drug
industry.