Thursday, January 24, 2008

Perceptions of drugs and Big Pharma

First off, I recently found out that "Big Pharma" is actually an organization, cleverly called PhRMA. Just an interesting factoid. Anyways, there was a recent study released by the New York Institute of Technology looked at the perceptions of people aged 18-26 and what they thought about medications, advertising and Big Pharma. Here's the link to the article on the study, as well as some actually pics. It's encouraging to see that most surveyed realized the importance of drugs, as well as the possibility of side effects. People also requested more information (see the top question on the second chart) And, who is better than drug information than us. Obviously, an opportunity to step in and offer information, and be a resource. I think we can also realize that advertising, thought totally biased, can stimulate conversation with patients.