Irrational Healers?

摘要

The paper by Nierenberg et al. in this issue of the journal is richly allusive. It points to the fact that some data on the effects or side effects of drugs live in a way that other data do not and outlines some mechanisms as to why this should be the case. It is important that clinicians understand the dynamics that impinge on their judgment as it is almost certainly the case that pharmaceutical companies engineer clinical perceptions based on side effect profiles. The basic company position is that clinicians have no thoughts in their minds other than those put there by us or our competitors, and in order to plant a message or dislodge those of competitors companies employ all of the heuristics outlined by Nierenberg et al., and brought out beautifully in the example they cite from the war between Pfizer and Lilly over ziprasidone and olanzapine.