PharmFree

PharmFree is a campaign of the American Medical Student Association, in collaboration with No Free Lunch, to organize political activism challenging the practice of pharmaceutical gifting to students and physicians. It was started in 2002.

Objectives

AMSA established PharmFree for reasons including:

• The practice of pharmaceutical gifting to students and physicians increases the costs of health care for patients and does not primarily serve patient interests
• Medical students want to be honest with future patients about why a particular medication was prescribed without compromising personal and professional integrity.
• Medical students want to treat future patients using modalities supported by the best existing clinical evidence, not carefully packaged advertising.

PharmFree Week

AMSA sponsors an annual National PharmFree Week, wherein discussion of pharmaceutical marketing tactics, film screenings, panel discussions, residency fairs and new campaign launches take place. PharmFree Week serves to allow medical students, residents and physicians alike to speak out against marketing practices of the pharmaceutical industry which are perceived as biased.[1]

Counterdetailing initiative

PharmFree launched its Counterdetailing Initiative in 2005, at its annual PharmFree Day event, with the intent of:

• Educating medical students about evidence-based medicine and evidence-based prescription practices
• Empowering medical students through activism through education about existing clinical guidelines
• Introducing sources of unbiased and expert-reviewed information on pharmaceutical drugs to physicians
• Sharing knowledge about the effect of pharmaceutical promotions on the prescribing habits of physicians

External links

• PharmFree website

See also

• The Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics