“The drug companies do most of their promotion from behind the scenes, using tactics that are almost impossible to recognize as promotion,” according to Melody Petersen, author of a new book called Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs.

“For instance, when a company wants a group of patients to be advocates for a new medicine, some companies have simply created a group that looks like a heart association or a cancer society, but is little more than a creation of a public relations firm working to sell that drug.”

“A recent study found that prescription drugs may have played a role in 26 percent of the crashes of large trucks,” according to Melody Petersen, author of a new book called Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs.

“While Americans roughly doubled their spending on new automobiles between 1980 and 2003 and tripled their spending on clothing, they increased their spending on prescription drugs 17 times over,” according to Melody Petersen, author of a new book called Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs.

“The drug companies now pay for 65 to 80 percent of the education physicians receive after medical school,” according to Melody Petersen, author of a new book called Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs.

“Because of this, doctors wind up learning about and prescribing drugs that boost the corporate bottom line even though these medicines may not be best for their patients,” she notes.

“Are we being deliberately misled [ by drug companies ] ?”, Bill Moyers asked Melody Petersen, author of a new book called Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs.

“Yes, yes. Looking at documents from inside drug companies, yes, I would say that we are being misled deliberately,” Petersen answered.

“There is study that the FDA [ US Food and Drug Administration ] often sites, that 100,000 Americans die every year from their prescription drugs that they took just as the doctor directed,” Melody Petersen, author of a new book called Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs told Bill Moyers.

“This isn’t when a doctor or pharmacist made a mistake, or the patient accidentally took too much,” Petersen continued.

“This is when everything supposedly went right.”

“So that just shows you how dangerous these products are.”

In her book, she also notes that drug-related deaths are often hidden and never reported on death certificates.

“A government scientist estimated that [ Vioxx ] may have killed more than 40,000 Americans,” she notes.

“I was fascinated to read an attack on your book, a seeming review in the New York Post, ‘A Hard Pill to Swallow’, that was very critical of your book by Robert Goldberg,” Bill Moyers said to Melody Petersen, author of a new book called Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs.

“It says nothing about who Robert Goldberg is,” Moyers continued.

“But when you do a little investigating, it turns out that he is Vice President of a group that receives funding from the drug industry, but he does not disclose this fact in this review.”

“Exactly,” Petersen said. “This is what they do over and over again. The drug companies are very good at putting their words in the words of someone who looks independent to get their message across.”

“The drug companies learned from the tobacco industry that the public would believe their message if it came from someone who appeared independent,” Peterson wrote a letter to the New York Post in response to Goldberg’s attack.

“People need honest information about medicines, not propaganda.”

“If [ the drug companies ] want to make [ their drug ] look more powerful than an older drug on the market, [ the drug companies ] give the volunteers in [ their ] trial the older drug at a dose that is too low to really help them so that [ their ] drug looks better,” according to Melody Petersen, author of a new book called Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs.

“If [ the drug companies ] want [ their ] drug to look safer than an older drug, [ they ] boost up the dose of the older drug in the volunteers so that they have more side effects,” according to Melody Petersen, author of a new book called Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs.

“If [ the drug companies ] have one study that showed [ their drug ] worked, and one study showed it did not, [ they ] publish the first study over and over again with the help of [ their ] advertising agency, and [ they ] don’t publish the second one,” according to Melody Petersen, author of a new book called Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs.

“Some independent scientists are starting to view our medical literature as propaganda,” according to Melody Petersen, author of a new book called Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs. In all other countries, drug companies are only allowed to advertise to doctors, but not allowed to advertise directly to consumers. “I’ve learned that there are so many different ways for a study to be designed to get the data to help you sell your drug.”

In her book, she notes that, “I think that Dr. Richard Smith, the former editor of the British Medical Journal, said it best when he wrote that our medical journals have become ‘a marketing arm’ of the drug industry.”

“Unfortunately, physicians have lost their way,” Melody Petersen, author of a new book called Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs, told Bill Moyers on his television program The Journal.

“I don’t think the public really understands this, but in 1951, Congress changed the law so that we would require a prescription for certain drugs,” Petersen continued.

“Before, we could go into a drugstore and get whatever we wanted, and Congress wanted an educated physician, who had the best interest of his patients at heart, and was independent from the pharmacies and drug companies to be the gate keeper.”

“But now, a lot of the physicians in America take gifts or cash from the drug companies.”

“Some physicians take hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.”

In her book she notes that “a survey in 2007 found that virtually all physicians – 94 percent – take gifts or cash from the drug companies.”

“Find a doctor who has thrown the sales reps out of his office, who has said, ‘I’m going to do what is right for my patients’,” Melody Petersen, author of a new book called Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs told Bill Moyers.

“There is a growing number of doctors who feel that way,” Petersen continued.

“I think the thing that could do the most good is to have a law that bans doctors from taking money from drug companies.”

“We need our doctors to be our independent advocates again.”

“Congress too is in the grip of the [ drug ] industry,” Bill Moyers revealed while interviewing Melody Petersen, author of a new book called Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs.

“[ Melody ] Petersen reports that in a recent six-year period, big pharma spent more on lobbying than any other industry, and now employs two lobbyists for ever member of congress.”

“With doctors and Congress compromised, what about that other gatekeeper, the FDA [ the US Food and Drug Administration ],” Bill Moyers asked Melody Petersen, author of a new book called Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs.

“Actually, the drug industry pays the FDA, too,” Petersen answered.

“There was a change in the law in 1992. Before 1992, the FDA had one customer, and that was us, the public.”

“But in [ 1992 ], the drug companies started to pay fees to get their drugs reviewed and approved.”

“So the FDA has another customer now, and that is the drug companies.”

“Talking to scientists inside the FDA, you learn that there is an awful lot of pressure to do what the [ drug ] industry wants [ the FDA ] to do.”

Drug companies can only advertise directly to consumers in the US and New Zeland according to Melody Petersen, author of a new book called Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs. In all other countries, drug companies are only allowed to advertise to doctors, but not allowed to advertise directly to consumers.

“When I started writing about the pharmaceutical companies for The [ New York ] Times, I didn’t know anything about the drug companies, and I actually thought they were a lot about science,” Melody Petersen, author of a new book called Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs told Bill Moyers.

“That’s what they tell the public. That they are all about science and discovering new drugs.”

“But as I started to follow their daily activities and talked to executives, I learned that really it was marketing that drove them.”

Americans spend more on medicines than all the people of Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina combined according to Melody Petersen, author of a new book called Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs as noted by Bill Moyers on his television program The Journal.

“[ Melody ] Petersen reports that almost 65 percent of [ Americans ] now take a drug that is only available by prescription,” Bill Moyers noted while interviewing Melody Petersen, author of a new book called Our Daily Meds: How The Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines And Hooked The Nation On Prescription Drugs on his television program The Journal.

“Aggressive market has turned was were once normal-life events into a maladies that can be treated with a pill.”