A.M.A. to Study Effect of Marketing Drugs to Consumers
As reported in the New York Times Business Section (June 22, 2005), The American Medical Association, the nation's largest organization of physicians, agreed yesterday to study whether consumer drug advertising leads to unnecessary prescriptions, potentially harming patients and driving up health costs.

First Run/Icarus Films has recently released SELLING SICKNESS, a documentary co-written by the internationally respected health and medicine journalist Ray Moynihan, which exposes how drug companies have hired marketers to "brand" diseases, or conditions, as opposed to the drug they're selling. Shyness thus becomes branded as 'Social Anxiety Disorder.' The film features commentary from drug company consultants, advertising executives, patients and their advocates, researchers, attorneys, and psychiatrist Dr. David Healy, a fomer insider and now a critic of the industry.