BMJ  2008;336:110 (19 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.39458.463912.3A

Letters

Doctors and the drug industry

Sophisticated misguidance

The first 100% of the full text of this article appears below.

I am being bombarded and almost buried by an avalanche of personal, postal, electronic, and cyber communications regarding attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).1 The scenario depicts a catastrophe of great magnitude, which guys like me could avert: "The uneducated need be educated and the unmotivated need be motivated."

Free continuing education credits (in the United States, these are required to maintain the licence to practise), dinners at fancy restaurants ("Your guests are welcome"), subscriptions to journals, etc, are offered. Sophisticated marketing techniques of the billion dollar pharmaceutical industry are carefully at work. They are in the barely decipherable small print.

After absorbing all the high powered presentations my conclusion is that ADHD=BS.

Amarasinghe A W Amarasinghe, consultant psychiatrist

1 102 Bayberry Hills, McDonough, GA 30253-4005, USA

amare1@pol.net

Competing interests: None declared.

  1. Godlee F. Doctors and the drug industry. Editor’s choice. BMJ 2008;336. (5 January.) doi:10.1136/bmj.39444.472708.47[Free Full Text]

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