Pharmaceutical companies spend billions marketing their drugs to physicians, and that process results in assorted ethical dilemmas. In a hilarious and shockingLast Week Tonightreport from Sundays Season Two premiere, host John Oliverprescribes a closerlook at these troubling truths.
Prescription drugs: the only ovals that can bring people in the Seattle area joy anymore, Oliver says, opening the segment with a timely Super Bowl reference. He then shifts the tone by cutting to a series of sobering news pieces reporting that 70% of Americans regularly took at least one prescription drug in 2011 and that $329.2 billion (or roughly $1,000 per person) was spent on those medications in 2013. Walter White could have made more money cooking up rheumatoid arthritis medication, Oliver cracks.
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But, as the host observes, the drug companies themselves wield a surprising amount of influence in pumping out the pills, spending an estimated $24 billion marketing directly to doctors. Oliver compares the companies to high school boyfriends, joking that theyremuch more concerned with being inside you than being effective once youre in there.
Oliver riffs about how pharmaceutical sales reps use sex appeal and free food to peddle drugs, but the problem comes if those reps dont understand the effects of the drugs theyre pushing. Some companies take the off-label approach, pushing doctors to push pills for non-FDA uses. Other times, doctors are paid to be thought leaders, pitching drugs to other doctors over dinner.
Its a messy, overwhelming issue for a lot of the American public, but Oliver notes one intriguing development: the recently established federal websiteOpenPaymentsData.CMS.gov, which enablesaverage citizensa chance to search for perks given to doctors by pharmaceutical companies.
The segment ends with a lighthearted pre-filmed bit, withPharmaceutical Money pushed as a prescription drug. The side effects, naturally, includechronic overprescription, unusually heavy cash flow and death.