Postmodern Medicine: An Analysis of the Pharmaceutical Industry and Its Critics

The relationship between physicians and the pharmaceutical industry has been the subject of extensive debate in the last decade or so. This analysis offers some personal observations and suggestions on this discussion from the perspective of psychiatry. The article analyzes a number of critiques of the pharmaceutical industry—the free market myth, the drug price myth, the academic-pharmaceutical complex, lack of innovation, ghost authorship, and the profit motive—in relation to the ethics of medical practice and suggests some public policy solutions. While the focus here is on psychiatry, many of the concepts and principles discussed should apply generally to the medical profession as a whole.