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To: Webster Groves who wrote (65973)	6/8/2007 11:21:53 AM
From: kikogrey	Respond to of 116555

New drug money goes to print ads and online in-your-face. There's a reason for that. Doctors used to get treated to vacations, etc but the laws have changed and now it's just fancy dinners. Direct advertising to patients used to not be legal, now it is. The difference is that patients don't have the expertise to properly interpret the advertising. They aren't aware of alternate therapies, alternate drug therapies, etc. Example--Say a drug companies patent is about to expire and there will soon be generics marketed. They will change one part of the drug, re-patent it (extended-release variations are popular) and re-market it as the Holy Grail. The general public thinks this is a "newer, better drug" when all it is the drug company's attempt to extend their patent. Also all drugs have to do is work better than the placebo. They don't really have to work. Another technique is that the drug companies can do their own studies but if the studies don't show what they want they destroy them (so they won't be published ) since they "own" them (not the scientist who did the study).