Australian medical students launch Pharma Phacts:
Fed up with the barrage of drug company marketing designed to mould their future prescribing habits, a group of Australian medical students has decided to fight back.
Pharma Phacts, a national campaign that is officially launched today, aims to educate students on the effects and unconscious influence of pharmaceutical marketing. And it will come with an optional online pledge, in which students can vow to never accept a drug company freebie.
… After a “soft launch” including a Facebook group in March, Pharma Phacts gained about 450 members at 19 universities around the country.
… “[M]ore than doctors, we are ill-equipped to differentiate marketing from education [said one student]. With the free books, free stethoscopes — by the time you are prescribing you are totally involved in the machine. I think the Vioxx case has been an eye-opener about pharmaceutical tactics: a lot more medical students are coming off the fence. We want to be the generation that says no.”
July 22nd, 2009 at 4:38PM
It’s "Pharma Phacts." Facebook makes it hard to search for group names it you don’t have the correct spelling. Like, totally the correct spelling.
July 22nd, 2009 at 5:03PM
Whoops. Thanks for the correction, Brad. I’ve fixed it.