Pressure points: how big pharma reacts when a drug scandal breaks - Brief Article

New Internationalist, Nov, 2003

1 DENIAL

Side-effects and unforeseen deaths are part of the deal when you're pushing drugs. It's when the media and the activists start snooping around that the problems start.

Fightback strategies

* Deny everything.

* Take the high road. Accuse the media of sensationalism.

* Attack the accuracy of their reporting.

2 SHUTDOWN

As evidence mounts that problems are serious, politicians get in on the act, mouthing off to the media and threatening to call in the regulators.

Fightback strategies

* Boycott the media and starve the rat pack.

* Claim there's a conspiracy--rival companies, lefty journos and other vested interests are out to get you.

3 EXTRICATE

What a pain! Here come the regulators, poking and prying.

Fightback strategy

* Call in the high-priced lawyers to search for an escape route.

4 PURGE

Things are getting a bit too hot--there are stiffs all around and the threat of incontrovertible evidence' looms. The regulators are recalling the drug.

Fightback strategies

* Find a fall guy--preferably some old fogey in R&D who oversees trials and tests and is about to retire anyway.

* Pay them to take the rap and then say it was all their fault.

5 COMPENSATE

With the fall guy behind bars, the company escapes unscathed and it's back to business as usual. Except for those pesky victims' families and their lawsuits.

Fightback strategy

* Settle--offer big bucks as compensation, but only if they agree there was no malpractice.

Now everything's running smoothly again, put it down to experience and move on--there's money to be made.

Based on a scenario in Jeffrey Robinson's Prescription Games (Simon & Schuster 2001).