Jan 14 2005
All are enjoying the support of drug companies, and many of their physician members have financial relationships with drug companies as well.
With $900 million dollars in Synthroid sales in 2003, manufacturer Abbott has quite a bit of money to spread around when it comes to sharing the wealth with professional and patient groups, and financing their conferences and events, paying for PR efforts and PR firms, sponsoring cocktail parties at their meetings, paying for websites, advertising campaigns, and educational materials. At the same time, the physician leaders of these groups are barraged by the company's marketing efforts, advertising in professional journals, free samples, educational materials, prescription pads and other Synthroid logo items, training, free dinners, paid junkets, paid speaking opportunities, symposia fees, research funding and educational grants, among other resources.
How can these professional and patient groups ethically and responsibly claim that they are not influenced by Synthroid? If anything, every time there has been any public criticism of Synthroid, most of these groups have gone out of their way to issue press releases supporting the drug specifically, even when it did not appear to be in the best interest of patients.
Moving Toward 2006
Let's hope that the January 2006 Thyroid Awareness Campaign shows more of a genuine concern for the thyroid patient community. It's my hope that the professional and patient groups who want to set the agenda for America's thyroid community will turn their more attention and efforts toward issues that actually affect patients, and spend less time catering to the interests of their drug company benefactors.
