Big Pharma takes a one-two shot in the chops… Hope for the Oath-less I've told you many times before about the lengths to which pharmaceutical makers go to make sure doctors know about - and write prescriptions for - their drugs. I've told you about all-expenses-paid trips to Hawaii and other exotic locales, the lavish "educational" conferences in Vegas, the free tickets to sporting events and other perks, and the loitering sales personnel at medical schools… This is not to mention all the free meals, pens, notepads, glasses cases, free samples of drugs, and other gratis items Big Pharma dishes out to docs. According to data from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, this kind of spending rose from just over $12 billion in 1999 to over $22 billion in 2003. And just last month, I pulled the curtain back on Big Pharma's increasing practice of hiring comely, bubbly CHEERLEADERS as sales reps to push lonely, stressed-out male doctors' buttons - and push tons of pills in the process! But in the face of all this unmitigated corruption, it seems there's a glimmer of hope for tomorrow's doctors, and their medical ethics. According to a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor (not normally on my reading list, the piece was forwarded by a friend), there's a growing movement among medical students that shuns all Pharma-related perks: Pens, notebooks, tickets, trips, free samples - even drug-sponsored meals, a staple of the medical profession… Calling itself PharmFree, the movement is an initiative of the 60,000-strong American Medical Student Association. Their efforts so far include meeting with 40,000 American physicians to urge them not to accept any more Big Pharma freebies, and to direct them toward sources of information about drugs that are unaffiliated with the pharmaceutical industry. They've even staged a protest at Pfizer's New York headquarters, where they dumped tens of thousands of logo-sporting pens back onto the company's doorstep. They replaced these pens with ones of their own - with the PharmFree moniker emblazoned on them. Pretty funny, huh? All this is very encouraging news, if you ask me. In these days when drug makers control more and more aspects of mainstream medicine, and when young physicians no longer even have to take the Hippocratic Oath, there's little assurance of ethics among doctors. It's nice to see the pendulum swinging back toward conscientiousness in medicine… I hope it takes root on a larger scale. **************************************************** The Moore, the scarier By now, just about everybody knows who Michael Moore is: He's the rotund, Bush-bashing documentarist who produced the incendiary Fahrenheit 9/11 film, and who turned his Academy Award acceptance speech into a political rally. I'll spare you from my personal opinion of him, with this one caveat… That opinion might change for the better someday soon, now that I know what his next project is. According to Variety and other sources, Moore's next target for celluloid skewering is the American healthcare industry. And if a recent article in the Los Angeles Times is any indication, Big Pharma is not happy about it in the least. I say: Good. Let those fat cats sweat a bit in the spotlight. Appropriately enough, the film is called "Sicko." And according to the Variety piece, it's full of things like hidden cameras in doctors' offices and other docu-devices that point some pretty hefty fingers at the drug biz. Details are sketchy at this point, but as I hear them, I'll keep you posted… Sicko is scheduled to be released in September, and is expected by its distributor to bank $40 million or more in domestic box office sales. Sick of the drug biz's slick tricks, William Campbell Douglass II, MD | 
