Published 14 July 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a810
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a810

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Spam medicine

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

You know all those "Dearest friend" emails offering a half share of $30m from the estate of a Nigerian oil boss killed in an air crash? Or the authentic looking "urgent update" from banks at which we have no account? And the cleverly misspelt variations on Viagra that escape the spam guard? I delete all these fakes. Likewise, an email about female hypoactive sexual desire disorder was heading for the electronic dustbin, until I realised that this concerned a real job offer, forwarded by a university academic.

The drug industry complains that it is misrepresented and that it benevolently seeks to serve the health of all humanity, flatly refuting allegations of disease mongering and describing research into "me too" drugs as "important." The industry is angry at the suggestion that it creates medical experts and tries to build prestige disease brands.

Odd, then, that this email says it is "aimed . . . [Full text of this article]

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