By Michael Auerbach, Editor in Chief
The on-line Oxford English Dictionary defines the word stereotype as: A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.
Unfortunately we see a lot of this today. When one person, who belongs to a certain group, background, or ethnicity does something that reinforces a stereotype – the entire population of that group suffers. It’s not fair, it’s not reasonable, it’s not intelligent – yet it happens. We live in a world where a large portion of the population prefers to not spend the mental energy to form their own opinions and beliefs. It’s much easier to go along with the crowd.
As an industry, pharmaceuticals are not immune to stereotypes. And, for the industry, one (or two) bad apples can spoil the entire bunch.
The industry has always walked a fine line between the drive for corporate profits, and the drive to help patients. It’s an expensive business to be in – and many consumers, many who choose not to educate themselves as to how expensive bringing a drug to market is – lash out at the industry for being greedy, and heartless. Some politicians, looking for votes, do the same thing. Why work to change a stereotype – when it’s easier to go along with it?
There are many companies that do a good job walking this line. Patient outreach programs, charitable giving/events, community service, all work to burnish a company’s image.
And now comes news of another incident that will only serve to fuel the stereotypes.
But first to back up a bit; we all witnessed the horrible business dealings and attitude of the “Pharmabro”. His money-hungry price gouging and general smugness left a bad taste in my mouth, and stoked the emotions of those already railing against the pharmaceutical industry.
Now, we have another story of another pharma company doing bad/illegal things in order to sell an expensive product. I won’t go into the details here, you can read the article to get them, but it does not help the industry one bit to overcome its image of a greedy, manipulative business. And, it makes the rest of the industry look bad.
What can be done? The good players in the industry need to continue with their consumer outreach efforts. They need to distance themselves from the bad guys. And, probably most importantly, continue to educate the population about the good they do.
Knowledge is the first step to overcome stereotypes.