Pharmaceutical Companies: Car Salesmen Without The Lemon Laws?
Donald Light, professor of comparative health policy at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, says the pharmaceutical industry is a market for 'lemons' - a market in which the seller knows much more than the buyer about the product and can profit from selling products less effective and even less safe than consumers are led to believe. Talking at the meeting of the American Sociological Association, he said three reasons why the pharmaceutical market produces "lemons" are: Having companies in charge of testing new drugs, providing firewalls of legal protection behind which information about harms or effectiveness can be hidden, and the relatively low bar set for drug efficacy in order for a new drug to be approved. read more