title: [Is the pharmaceutical industry really as bad as its reputation?].
abstract: The pharmaceutical industry has a bad image. Recently it has often also been criticised in internationally well-known medical journals. An exact examination in the context of the peculiarities of the pharmaceutical products' market has shown that there are at present five areas where ethical problems in the pharmaceutical industry exist: poor information flow, the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and public health authorities, security standards and the scientific quality of research, provisioning, and priorities in research. It is difficult for the pharmaceutical industry to cope with conflicts of interest and their implications in these areas. There are surely individual ethical deficiencies and shortcomings but this is no reason for the whole branch to be castigated. In comparison to other branches, the pharmaceutical industry is much better than its image. People have to consume pharmaceutical products even though they do not like doing so, and therefore cannot be expected to champion the cause of the branch. It needs to adopt another strategy in order to improve its image.
authors.affiliation: Imabe-Institut für medizinische Anthropologie und Bioethik, Wien, Austria. ehprat@imabe.org
authors.forename: Enrique H
authors.initials: EH
authors.lastname: Prat
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic / Q000941:ethics; D016265:Conflict of Interest; D016527:Drug Costs / Q000941:ethics; D004345:Drug Industry / Q000941:ethics*; D004346:Drug Information Services / Q000941:ethics; D004994:Ethics, Pharmacy; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D011639:Public Opinion; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000941:ethics