More Generics, Fewer Freebies
Last week I mentioned my sadness when I heard the American Medical News publication had shut down. Well, The Atlantic made a connection between the decline of Big Pharma’s profits to the decline of AMNews:
That trade publications and medical journals suffer as a downstream effect of cheaper generic medications becoming available (which many physicians advocate, in the interest of making treatments more accessible to patients) further confuses the relationship between academia and industry.
Yes, the freebies are gone my friends. The problem is that doctors are also very cheap (or have the mindset that everything should be free). I know this way too well with the demise of my Placebo Journal. Getting doctors to pay for anything is like getting blood from a stone. That being said, the times have changed and we just need to get used to that. The Big Pharma events are extinct. The reps are going away. And the AMNews is gone.
Reminds me of the time a recently retired FP doc mentioned to me he has the time now to read the
journals he didn’t have time for when in practice. I believe a lot of use could appreciate that.
More Generics, “FEWER” Freebies
ok
A strange ironic ending for a publication that spent a lot of editorial ink on the hyperinflated, exaggerated gifts-to-doctors ‘crisis’. One hopes the AMA will continue expanding their exciting, oh so valuable code book industry.
Absoultely, Pat – I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for the release of ICD-11 – I hear it will be a real blockbuster!