Biotechnology in healthcare - Essay Example

Consequently, doctors tend to prescribe specific drugs so as to achieve maximum personal benefits even though the prescribed drugs are of less effect. The regulatory authorities face difficulty with preventing these unethical practices since medical prescription is completely left to doctors’ choice. This paper will critically explore the ethical and regulatory issues associated with marketing drugs in the United Kingdom. Drug Marketing Issues It has been identified that pharmaceutical companies spend a lot of money toward marketing their drugs in a way that their drugs would continuously get prescribed by doctors.

Naturally, the company representatives exaggerate the benefits and efficacy of their products; and often doctors do not try to verify the authenticity of their argument. In fact, there are no practical ways for doctors to test the reliability of companies’ claims instantly; the laboratory tests require much time and they would not provide cent percent accurate results of the drug’s effectiveness. The Inverse Benefit Law focused on Hart’s inverse care law states that “the ratio of benefits to harm among patients taking new drugs tends to vary inversely with how extensively the drugs are marketed” (wellness resources).

When companies extensively market their drugs, sometimes the act gives rise to new diseases. Pre-diabetes and pre-hypertension are some best fitted examples which reveal the horrible impacts of unethical drug marketing. Reducing the verge for a disease means maximum sales for pharmaceutical companies in UK; the same happens while new diseases emerge. It is important to note that the ultimate aim of medicine is to eradicate diseases but not to create new ones. However, drug marketers encourage doctors to test the effectiveness of their products on patients.

Although doctors know that certain drugs’ impacts may vary with age, sex, and demographic factors, they would not be willing to change their prescription criteria so as to preserve their personal interests. The most destructive impact of drug marketing is the practices of over dosage. Company representatives are always under pressure to meet their fixed targets; consequently, they may force doctors to prescribe drugs in large quantities. Although these over dosages may mitigate the symptoms of diseases rapidly, they have far reaching impacts on patients’ health.

Similarly, all misleading pharmaceutical advertisements are against the professional ethics as they negatively affect patients’ medical knowledge also. Issues associated with drug marketing regulation The regulatory authorities cannot insist doctors regarding medical prescription because of two reasons; firstly, a doctor is well conversant with the physical conditions of his/her patients; secondly, he/she must have full freedom of action during the course of treatment. In real practice, it is seen that doctors misuse their freedom with intent to gain personal economic benefits.

In such situations, regulators cannot identify whether a doctor’s prescription is genuine or not. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is responsible for excessive drug marketing prevention in UK. The MHRA 2008 reports show that the discontinuation of drugs within a shorter period of time causes severe impacts on patient’s health. Therefore, it is difficult to ban certain drugs even though they are found harmful. Disputes have been going on in UK even among regulation panel