Thick prescriptions: toward an interpretation of pharmaceutical sales practices.
Anthropologists of medicine and science are increasingly studying all aspects of pharmaceutical industry practices--from research and development to the marketing of prescription drugs. This article ethnographically explores one particular stage in the life cycle of pharmaceuticals: sales and marketing. Drawing on a range of sources-investigative journalism, medical ethics, and autoethnography--the author examines the day-to-day activities of pharmaceutical salespersons, or drug reps, during the 1990s. He describes in detail the pharmaceutical gift cycle, a three-way exchange network between doctors, salespersons, and patients and how this process of exchange is currently in a state of involution. This gift economy exists to generate prescriptions (scripts) and can mask and/or perpetuate risks and side effects for patients. With implications of pharmaceutical industry practices impacting everything from the personal-psychological to the global political economy, medical anthropologists can play a lead role in the emerging scholarly discourse concerned with critical pharmaceutical studies.
Department of Anthropology Princeton University, USA.
Michael J
MJ
Oldani
D004345:Drug Industry; D011307:Drug Prescriptions / Q000191:economics*; D004363:Drug Utilization; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D040541:Marketing / Q000379:methods*; D010565:Persuasive Communication; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'; D014481:United States