Former Drug Sales Rep
Tells All
Shahram Ahari, who spent two years selling
Prozac and Zypraxa for Eli Lily, told a Senate Aging
Committee that his job involved "rewarding physicians
with gifts and attention for their allegiance to your
product and company despite what may be ethically
appropriate."
Ahari claims that drug companies often hire former cheerleaders
and ex-models, as well as former athletes and members of the
military, even if they have no background in science.
During their five-week training class, Ahari says he was taught
sales tactics such as:
-
How to exceed spending limits for important
clients
-
How to be generous with free samples to
leverage sales
-
How to use friendships and personal gifts
to foster a "quid pro quo"
relationship
-
How to exploit sexual tension
Ahari claims
that he's even heard stories about sales reps helping to
pay the cost of a doctor's swimming pool, or taking a
doctor to a nightclub where a hostess was paid to keep
him company.
For this work, sales reps often earned more than researchers.
On top of a base salary of $50,000 for starting reps, Ahari
says, "there were four quarterly bonuses, an annual bonus,
stock options, a car, 401K, great health benefits, and a
$60,000 expense
account."
Sources:
Dr. Mercola´s Comment:
Shahram Ahari must be one
of the drug companies’ worst nightmares; he is one of the
few who has witnessed the corruption firsthand, and then
moved on to speak out about it.
By now, it’s old news that drug companies
use
extreme sales tactics to influence
doctors’prescribing habits, but
to hear the extent of just how far things go --
buying doctors’ swimming pools or using sexual innuendos
to make sales -- is still shocking.
"The nature of this business is gift-giving," Ahari said, and
indeed it seems that in the world of pharmaceuticals,
everything has a
price.
Your
Doctor Probably Has a Relationship With a Drug
Rep
It is the rare
physician who refuses to meet with drug sales reps. In fact, as
of April 2007, the percentage
was
just 7 percent of U.S.
doctors.
Even I met with drug reps until the year
2000, at which time I just refused to see any. Before that I
was actually a paid speaker for the drug companies. They would
fly me to various physician education events around the country
and pay me a VERY generous stipend to lecture to these groups.
That was more than two decades ago, before I was able to remove
myself from their very powerful brainwashing techniques -- and
I was finally able to understand the truth of what they were
doing.
So there is a very good chance that the doctor you see right
now is being subjected to similar intense sales tactics like
the ones Ahari describes. According to one study published in
The New England Journal of Medicine:
-
94 percent of
doctorshave some
type of relationship with the drug
industry
-
80 percent of doctors commonly accept free
food and drug
samples
-
One-third of doctors were reimbursed by the
drug industry for going to professional meetings or
continuing education
classes
-
28 percent of doctors have been paid for
consulting, giving lectures, or signing their
patients up for clinical
trials
Drug reps can be very
sneaky. According to a report in
PLoS Medicineco-authored by Ahari:
“Physicians who refuse to see reps are detailed by proxy; their
staff is dined and flattered in hopes that they will act as
emissaries for a rep's messages.”
Clearly these are no ordinary sales meetings; this is
psychological warfare.
Sales Reps are Trained
to Brainwash Doctors
Pharmaceutical sales reps are trained in
tactics that are on par with some of the most potent
brainwashing techniques used throughout the world, according to
the PLoS report. Said Ahari:
“It's my job to figure
out what a physician's price is. For some it's dinner at
the finest restaurants, for others it's enough convincing
data to let them prescribe confidently and for others
it's my attention and friendship ... but at the most
basic level, everything is for sale and everything is an
exchange.”
Drug reps must target
doctors because it is only through a physician that a
consumer can purchase their product. Although in the
United States they have also
ramped up their
direct-to-consumer
adson television and in
magazines, their real “meat and potatoes” comes from
their marketing directly to physicians.
This is why drug companies spend $4
billion each year on direct-to-consumer ads in the United
States, but
$16 billion
to influence
physicians. That is $10,000 for
every single doctor in the United States.
The Drug Sales Rep
Ambush
Most doctors don’t even
stand a chance against a seemingly innocent drug sales
rep. They appear friendly, eager to please, and
knowledgeable about their product, and most physicians
think there is no harm in accepting a free sample here,
or a free lunch there.
Well, studies have shown that
those
free samples and lunches DO impact doctors'
prescribing habits. So you can
imagine what a more lavish gift -- like a free vacation,
“consulting fee” or even companionship -- can do.
What they don’t get to see is
the well-oiled machine that is controlling these reps, and
ultimately the physicians as well, like marionettes.
From the instant a drug rep enters your office, the ambush is
underway. Says Ahari:
“A photo on a desk
presents an opportunity to inquire about family members
and memorize whatever tidbits are offered … these are
usually typed into a database after the encounter. Reps
scour a doctor's office for objects -- a tennis racquet,
Russian novels, seventies rock music, fashion magazines,
travel mementos, or cultural or religious symbols -- that
can be used to establish a personal connection with the
doctor.”
In their PLoS Medicine report,
Ahari and Adriane Fugh-Berman, an associate professor in
the department of physiology and biophysics at Georgetown
University Medical Center, even put together this chart
of the specific tactics used to manipulate
physicians.
chart
|
What is the Moral of the
Story?
Your doctor may have the
best intentions in the world, but if they
are being visited by drug reps, there is
a strong likelihood they have been
influenced by highly skilled,
multinational, self-serving corporate
interests and their opinions about
prescription drugs are likely highly
biased as a result. This can certainly
happen even at a subconscious level, and
the end result is a higher tendency to
prescribe the drugs that have been
marketed to them.
This is why I remind you often, taking
ownership for your own health by
leading a healthy
lifestyle, and only resorting to drugs
as a last option, is the key to
surviving, and thriving, in the 21st
century.
|
Related Articles:
Is Your Doctor
Moonlighting--As a Drug Rep?
Drug Companies Collect
Secret Reports on Doctors
Is Your Doctor Being
PAID OFF by the Drug
Industry?
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