CALPIRG Blog

Doctors-in-training at med schools learn the facts and skills that help them practice medicine once they graduate. Unfortunately, right now most of them also learn that it's impossible to escape pharmaceutical company marketing. That was the conclusion of a recent study by the American Medical Student Association, which found that most schools don't do a good enough job keeping track of and limiting the gifts drug reps give to their students.

Schools without strong conflict-of-interest policies allow pharma reps to come on campus and ply students with free gifts, free meals, and free samples of their drugs (samples which can drive up patient costs by 40%). These marketing efforts bias the education of the students, by providing often-dubious information that can contradict what they're learning in classes and on the job. Further, the drug reps' efforts to affect students' prescription activities via free perks can help create an environment that leads students to think that such conflicts of interest aren't ethically questionable.  This CALPIRG report examines some of the other reasons drug marketing is problematic.

Some schools have banned or otherwise limited pharma marketing. But the new report shows that the majority don't do enough to keep their students safe from drug company influence: of 150 med schools surveyed, only 7 got an A on the student association report card, with 14 Bs and 60 who flat-out failed their students. Californians can be proud that three of those A's were in our state, but that's not a curve any teacher would be proud of.

These findings come in the wake of another recent report by the Association of American Medical Colleges, which recommended that med schools institute a flat-out ban on drug-company-provided gifts, meals, and travel, and discourage faculty members from having paid quid-pro-quo relationships with the companies.

Getting drug marketing out of the classroom would be an important step towards getting it out of the consulting room, too -- and making sure that prescription drugs are safe and affordable.