Cheerleaders, Your Doctor and Big Brother

Many science fiction stories from the last fifty years focused on the government keeping track of future citizens. Few envisioned private corporations keeping even more track of various professional groups. One such group is physicians.

Many physicians don't know this, but the American Medical Association sells detailed data on both members and non-members. Research firms match this data with prescription information they've bought from pharmacies. And voila, they can then generate detailed information about every script an individual physician writes, and the data is then packaged and sold to the drug companies.

So when a former cheerleader drug rep goes into a physician's office ("Gimme an Rx! Cheerleaders Pep Up Drug Sales," New York Times) she knows exactly what her physician has been up to, and if he's been faithful to her drug. If he hasn't behaved, she can wiggle her hips, play nurse with his stethoscope and seductively ask if he doesn't care about her and her products anymore.

And, apparently this works quite well, since the number of drug sales reps have increased to around 100,000 in the U.S.

If you'd like to learn more about how the pharmaceutical companies keep tabs on your physician, read the cover article "Doctors Object to Gathering of Drug Data" in the New York Times.

This is far from the first article on this topic, however, the fact that this issue now makes the front page of the New York Times indicates that the heat on the drug industry is increasing. That shouldn't be surprising considering that in the most recent Harris poll only 9% of the population thinks the drug industry is "generally honest and trustworthy.

But who needs trust when they have a sales force filled with former cheerleaders?
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IMPORTANT LEGAL DISCLAIMER HERE