Ethics in pharmaceutical products promotion

							                                                                                                        CORRESPONDENCE

Ethics in pharmaceutical products promotion
Recently the Organization of Pharmaceu-       viding freebies, apart from scientific in-      takes care of the patient’s clinical condi-
tical Producers of India (OPPI), which is     formation including literature, brochure        tion and, more importantly, the economic
a premier organization of pharmaceutical      and other scientific inputs. The condition of   status of the patient. Let the medical
manufacturers in India, has revised its       the Indian pharma industry is also pathetic     practitioner be an unbiased or an impar-
model code on standards of promotion          with more than 20,000 manufacturing             tial judge of what is required and for
activity to medical practitioners. This       units that sell more than 70,000 brands.        which patient. What is needed is a con-
model code aims to restrict pharmaceuti-      It is virtually impossible for any medical      crete, directed and focused effort by all
cal companies from providing ‘freebies’       practitioner or even a common man to            players of the pharmaceutical industry
to medical practitioners so as to reduce      remember the whopping number of brand           and other stakeholders as well, in order
influence on prescribing drugs of a par-      names. Every company or manufacturer            to regulate the promotional activities of
ticular company. This is based on the In-     wants to survive in this cut-throat com-        pharmaceutical companies to medical
ternational Federation of Pharmaceutical      petition and thus direct their efforts to-      practitioners. As OPPI has modelled its
Manufacturers Associations (IFPMA)            wards these unhealthy practices. Though         code on the IFPMA code, all trade asso-
code which is considered as a model           the OPPI code has tried to amend some           ciations of pharmaceutical industry, gov-
code. Section 2.2 of General Principles       of these unethical practices in tune with       ernment, NGOs and common men should
of OPPI code states that ‘No financial        IFPMA code, which is welcomed by                join hands together to curtail the practice
benefit or benefit-in-kind (including         trade associations, some lacunae exist.         of influencing medical practitioners.
grants, scholarships, subsidies, support,     What about companies that are not mem-          Governments can frame and enact laws
consulting contracts or educational or        bers of OPPI? What if companies con-            and legislations that would take care of
practice-related items) may be provided       tinue to promote their product in an            marketing practices and create a monitor-
or offered to a healthcare professional in    unscientific way? Is there any mecha-           ing authority that would monitor the
exchange for prescribing, recommend-          nism by which unscientific promotion by         promotional activities of pharmaceutical
ing, purchasing, supplying or administer-     companies is restricted? Besides, the           companies in India.
ing products or for a commitment to           companies that are not members of OPPI
continue to do so’ 1. This clearly states     may not follow the code and can circum-
the refined position of OPPI code which       vent the provisions, still continue to in-      1. OPPI Code of Pharmaceutical Marketing
is based on a noble intention of having a     fluence the medical practitioners. The             Practices, January 2007, General Principles,
rationale for prescribing a product of a      Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objection-               12 (http://www.indiaoppi.com/OPPI%20
particular company by the medical pro-        able Advertisements) Act in India states           Code%20of%20Marketing%202007.pdf
fessional without any influence so as to      only the conditions for which a drug               accessed on 09–02–07).
benefit the patient. It gives more freedom    cannot be directly advertised. At present
to medical professionals to choose the        there are no provisions to monitor how
treatment option for patients on a case by    companies, that are not members of                                   M ANTHAN D. J ANODIA
case basis if they are not influenced by      OPPI, adhere to standard practices. While                                     N. UDUPA*
pharmaceutical companies. But it is a         the new code by OPPI may not be music
well-known fact that there are many           to the ears of medical practitioners since      Department of Pharmacy Management,
companies trying to influence the pre-        many of them would be devoid of the             Manipal College of Pharmaceutical
scribing habit of doctors with their kind     favours accorded to them by certain               Sciences,
gesture towards the practitioner, which       pharmaceutical companies. At the same           Manipal University,
ultimately tempts other companies also        time it is required that the prescription       Manipal 576 104, India
to lure the medical practitioners by pro-     generated at the hands of the practitioner      *e-mail: n.udupa@manipal.edu



Frontier research and the undergraduate syllabus
A phenomenal rise in the number of jour-      expensive modes of communication have           lower level, say, at the undergraduate
nals and publications dealing with research   helped like-minded people to come               (UG) level, or may be even at the plus-
papers from narrower and highly specialized   closer.                                         two level. This is a matter of concern.
fields that have gone up manifold in last        As a consequence, a section of scien-           It goes without saying that in science
couple of decades, is just mind-boggling.     tists and researchers with a focused vision     the topics that students are exposed to at
We are now having newer scientific            have begun to feel that their fields of         an elementary level are, in general, con-
societies and conferences discussing focu-    work are so important that the students         sidered to be more fundamental; they
sed topics from different sub-fields, with    of the concerned subject should know            may be more important in building up
the groups also getting further subdivi-      about it as early as possible. They expect      the basic concepts of a subject. We have
ded quickly. The worldwide web, and           that students should be aware of the most       all learnt the laws of reflections or New-
other fast and effective but easy and in-     modern developments of a subject at a           ton’s laws of motion at school, no matter

CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 92, NO. 9, 10 MAY 2007                                                                                           1195
CORRESPONDENCE
whether in the long run we pursued science    point of view. What happens in the proc-       bus. More stress should be given to the
or any other stream. This essentially shows   ess? Classical experiments in physics for      basic concepts and not to mere exposi-
how fundamental these principles are.         understanding some important and basic         tion to some frontier topics.
   However, all the modern fields of sci-     phenomena are replaced by experiments             The problem, it appears, is bothering
entific research are not equally funda-       based on electronics, microprocessors or       all teachers of science, not only of physics,
mental in nature, though scientists or        computers. We train students in the use        teaching at the plus two as well as at the
academicians whose fields of research         of sophisticated instruments, while the        UG level. However, the solution possibly
are quite naturally close to their hearts     involved physics in the studied pheno-         lies with the people involved in active
often refuse to take cognizance of this.      menon takes a backseat. Probably detailed      research and with those responsible for
So much so that some of them expect           studies of different aspects of Newton’s       framing the plus-two level and UG syllabi.
nanotechnology should be included in the      laws of motion may have to provide space       Different stakeholders, viz. the plus-two
UG curriculum of physics. Some expect         for ‘introduction to particle physics’ or      level UG teachers and PG teachers, and
that VLSI technology should be made           ‘special theory of relativity’ at the higher   scientists and researchers must have a
known to the UG students of physics or        secondary level. Unfortunately, the ca-        common platform to talk about these
electronics in all detail while others feel   pability or the interest of the majority of    issues 1. Otherwise, the concept of down-
that UG physics students must know            students of a particular level is not taken    loading will make UG students equipped
something about biological systems,           into consideration while framing a sylla-      more with jargons and less with the un-
where the laws of physics can be applied.     bus. Focus remains only on students who        derstanding of the basic concepts of the
Some also expect that all the intricacies     may pursue the subject at a higher level,      concerned subjects.
of a solar cell should be part of the plus-   leaving out other possible vocations for
two syllabus. It seems as though scien-       the students of physics. As some UG
tists have adopted the slogan ‘catch them     students could become future teachers, the     1. Chakrabarti, B., Curr. Sci., 2006, 90,
                                                                                                1169–1170.
young’ and are trying hard to catch the       UG syllabus should cater to them as well.
attention of young students by an impres-        As such, there is a dearth of good
sive presentation of the relevant topics      school teachers. UG teaching is also not                          BHUPATI CHAKRABARTI
from the respective fields at a more ele-     that attractive. If we expect to have more
mentary level.                                committed science teachers in schools          Department of Physics,
   All these are giving rise to a pheno-      and colleges, who will be able to ignite       City College,
menon that is often termed as the concept     young minds, we have to address the            Kolkata 700 009, India
of ‘downloading’ from the syllabus-framing    problem of overburdening the UG sylla-         e-mail: dibhu@cal3.vsnl.net.in




Chikungunya epidemics due to Central African genotype in
Andhra Pradesh
Chikungunya virus is an Arthropodborne        Democratic Republic of Congo (Sai              duced more than five years before the
virus (genus Alphavirus, family Toga-         Gopal et al., unpublished data). Several       current outbreak5. Absence of herd im-
viridae) transmitted by Aedes aegypti and     interesting observations were made from        munity in the affected population can
A. albopictus mosquitoes. Although the        the current epidemic. Compared to early        also be considered as one of the reasons
first recorded epidemic of chikungunya in     outbreaks (which were confined to cities),     for such a large outbreak6. Chikungunya
India was in 1963 in Kolkata 1, existence     the current epidemic was predominantly         virus might have been maintained in nature
of chikungunya virus antibodies in hu-        rural 5. Chikungunya virus isolated be-        at a low level and cases were misdiag-
man sera collected between 1954 and           tween 1963 and 1973 belonged to Asian          nosed as dengue due to similar symp-
1956 suggests 2,3 that the disease was        genotype, whereas the current epidemic         toms 7. There are reports of simultaneous
prevalent in India prior to 1963. Many        isolates of Karnataka, Maharashtra, AP         co-infection of chikungunya and dengue
epidemics were recorded in Chennai,           and the Yawat isolate (2000) belonged to       viruses 8,9.
Vellore, Kakinada, Nagpur and Barsi.          Central/East African genotype 5.                  The work done by Schuffenecker et al.10
   Andhra Pradesh (AP) was the first state       How did chikungunya virus emerge            on chikungunya virus and its dependence
to report chikungunya virus during the        after such a long gap was a question of        on cholesterol for replication has deve-
epidemic in December 2005, and was            serious concern? Yawat isolate was earlier     loped interest among the scientific com-
among the worst affected4. Phylogenetic       reported as Asian genotype, but NS4-           munity. Schuffenecker et al. 10 have
analysis of 330 bp E1 region of chikun-       based phylogenetic analysis showed             observed a specific change at position
gunya virus of AP isolate (accession no.      Yawat isolate as Central/East African          226 of the E1 protein (membrane fusion
DQ888620) showed that it was closely          genotype5. Grouping of Yawat isolate           glycoprotein). The virus normally needs
related to the Central African isolates       with Central/East African genotype sug-        cholesterol to infect the cells of human
from Reunion Islands and also from the        gests that this genotype had been intro-       and mosquitoes, and mosquitoes often do

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