The Pitfalls of Deducing Ethics From Behavioral Economics: Why the Association of American Medical Colleges Is Wrong About Pharmaceutical Detailing

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) is urging academic medical centers to ban pharmaceutical detailing. This policy followed from a consideration of behavioral and neuroeconomics research. I argue that this research did not warrant the conclusions drawn from it. Pharmaceutical detail...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American journal of bioethics 2010-01, Vol.10 (1), p.1-8
Main Author: Huddle, Thomas S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic Medical Centers - ethics
academic medicine
Advertising as Topic - ethics
behavioral economics
Conflict of Interest - economics
Drug Industry - economics
Drug Industry - ethics
Drug Prescriptions - economics
Education, Medical, Graduate - economics
Education, Medical, Graduate - ethics
Ethics, Medical
Gift Giving - ethics
Humans
Judgment - ethics
medical ethics
medical professionalism
pharmaceutical detailing
pharmaceutical industry
Physicians - economics
Physicians - ethics
Practice Patterns, Physicians' - economics
Practice Patterns, Physicians' - ethics
Public Policy
Societies, Medical
Trust
United States
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Summary:The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) is urging academic medical centers to ban pharmaceutical detailing. This policy followed from a consideration of behavioral and neuroeconomics research. I argue that this research did not warrant the conclusions drawn from it. Pharmaceutical detailing carries risks of cognitive error for physicians, as do other forms of information exchange. Physicians may overcome such risks; those determined to do so may ethically engage in pharmaceutical detailing. Whether or not they should do so is a prudential judgment about which reasonable people may disagree. The AAMC's ethical condemnation of detailing is unwarranted and will subvert efforts to maintain a realm of physician discretion in clinical work that is increasingly threatened in our present practice environment.
ISSN:1526-5161
1536-0075
DOI:10.1080/15265160903440998