Unethical Drug Marketing in the Pharmaceutical Industry Research Paper

Unethical Drug Marketing in the Pharmaceutical Industry - research Paper Examplened the motives of Big Pharma as they market drugs without adequate regard to the effects that such marketing practices have on the patients and consumers. In their morbid pursuit of profits, drug companies have indeed thrown caution to the winds and have sacrificed ethics at the altar of profits. This paper examines the unethical drug marketing strategies utilize by Big Pharma by analyzing them from the perspective of utileism and deontology. The emphasis in this paper is on finding out if the drug marketing strategies are warrant according to the philosophical theories discussed and whether they satisfy the minimum requirements for ethical behavior. Note that there is no special emphasis on whether these strategies are completely overboard. Instead, the analysis is or so whether they meet the basic criterion for ethical behavior and good conduct.The five tactics used by drug companies to market th eir products can be categorised according to the potential for harm that they cause to patients. This categorization would yield that the following is the order (from the least harmful to the most harmful) physicians targeted promotion, DTCDA, unethical recruitment of physicians, researchers conflicts of interests, and data use of goods and services in clinical trials (Chiu, 2005). Considering the fact that the intended beneficiaries of these strategies who are the patients stand to suffer the most because of these tactics, it is worth asking whether the drug companies have the interests of the shareholders alone in intelligence when they resort to these practices. The fact that they favor the interests of the few (shareholders) at the expense of the many (the patients) clearly indicates that their marketing strategies are not conscionable from either a utilitarian or deontological point of view. This would be discussed in detail in the succeeding paragraphs. Suffice to say that drug companies are indeed crossing the line as far as ethics and unethical behavior is concerned