Title:Shining a Light on Drug Industry Influence

With the impact of the opioid crisis continuing to unfold, Georgetown convened health professionals in June for a hard look at what is happening now and what can we do better going forward, as a country and increasingly as a global community. Opioids: Conflicts and Controversies brought together 200 physicians,  nurses, pharmacists, social scientists, lawyers, students, and a few state attorneys general for the conference offered by Georgetown’s PharmedOut project.

The event was led by trailblazer Adriane Fugh-Berman (M’88), professor of pharmacology and physiology at Georgetown University Medical Center. She launched PharmedOut in 2007 as an education and research effort to help shed light on pharmaceutical industry marketing practices and foster evidence-based, cost-effective prescribing.

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“A key part of the tragedy of the opioid epidemic is that physicians participated unwittingly in creating it,” says Fugh-Berman. “It was started by industry, but doctors weren’t suspicious enough about the reframing of pain, so we became the agents of industry in creating this epidemic. It is our obligation to help stop it, not only in the U.S. but also to prevent the epidemic from being exported to other countries.”

PharmedOut is working to defend the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain, which Fugh-Berman says is under attack by industry-funded third parties including  “pain advocacy” organizations, which continuously shutter and reopen under different names.

Like the Jesuits, Fugh-Berman is not afraid to go to the tension places and challenge the powerful. In addition to opioids, PharmedOut focuses on pharmaceutical marketing messages covertly placed in articles and talks, product advertising that is disguised as education, and the corporate invention of diseases like low libido.

“Being the first out there can be challenging for an institution, but this program fits with our Georgetown principles like work in the service of others, and care for the whole person,” she notes. “PharmedOut has many firsts. We were the first to write an article in the medical literature exposing drug rep tactics, first to survey family medicine residencies about the influence of the pharmaceutical industry, and first to publish a study on relationships between physicians and medical device reps—to name just a few.”

Individual donations and grants help fund the program. Support for their work continues to grow, and Fugh-Berman says the impact is outsized for the size of the organization. “It enables us to punch above our weight. It’s the best investment in a donation anyone can make!”

She hopes it will help them go international on the opioids issue, because she sees similar patterns unfolding in other countries.

“If we can help prevent this epidemic from devastating India, China, and Latin America, that would be a good use of the rest of my life. But it’s a big project—I can’t do it alone.”