Bitter Pills:Medicines & The Third World Poor | Page 70

CHAPTER 5
INFORMATION OR
MISINFORMATION?
Drug Promotion
"Medical representatives must be adequately trained and
possess sufficient medical and technical knowledge to
present information on the company's products in an
accurate and responsible manner." (Association of the
British Pharmaceutical Industry Code of Practice.)" 1
THE QUEUE of patients stretched out into the dark corridor and down the stairs.
Inside the doctor's consulting room a row of chairs was filled with still more
patients. Some would obviously have a very long wait. The dingy walls were
brightened with glossy calendars from big-name drug manufacturers. An eyecatching display of tins of artificial baby milk stood on a shelf above the window.
The advertisers' images of healthy babies beaming from the tins made a poignant
contrast to the very sick children waiting to be seen. Harassed parents tried to
stop them crying.
Looking decidedly unperturbed, the doctor was inspecting a patient's injured knee.
Then he saw us in the doorway. Immediately he abandoned his patient and came
to greet us. His warm welcome was mainly directed at the familiar face of the
drug salesman whom we were accompanying on his rounds. We had stopped off
here to deliver a stack of prescription pads specially printed with the doctor's name.
This was part of the 'special service' to doctors, we were told, besides providing
a means of keeping tabs on their prescribing habits. (Later the salesman could
go to the pharmacy and check just which products the doctor had prescribed.)
Outside in the heat and the dust, horns blared as cars", people and animals
negotiated their way through the narrow streets. Fully veiled women hurried along
silently. This was Sana'a, capital of the Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen)
one late afternoon in August 1980. The salesman's car was parked alongside the
doctor's Mercedes, its boot crammed with more prescription pads and an
assortment of free samples.
Somewhat bizarrely, our first encounter with the salesman had taken place in the
offices of the Supreme Board of Drug Control - the government agency responsible
for controlling drug marketing. The salesman was employed there in the mornings
as an administrator. But in the afternoons, to supplement his meagre government
pay, he worked for the Mohdar Corporation, agents and wholesalers for a number
of leading drug manufacturers. |2)
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