THE

ETHICAL

ISSUES

INVOLVED

IN

MEDICAL

SALES

REPRESENTATION by Matthew Ackah (B. Pharm) It is not uncommon for a fresh registered pharmacist in Ghana to be recruited as a medical sales representative to help in marketing medicines to health facilities. This comes easy for the pharmaceutical company due to the promises and remuneration that comes with the work. Medical representatives are people with the requisite body of pharmaceutical knowledge that gives them the opportunity to market products to health facilities through channels such as doctors and pharmacists. They have a responsibility to make especially a new product available to the market and known to health professionals. It is in the same line of duty that the medical representative should make the effects of the drugs known to the buyer-good or adverse so that effective decision can be made in that wise. There are many ethical issues that has for years been left unresolved and these are the issues that I hope to tackle as in this edition. Unfortunately, the duty of a medical sales representative is bound by a time bomb that demands that a quantity of products are sold within a given period of time. Most of the representatives in their bid to meet deadlines tend to use all ways to hit their targets without thought to the effects of their actions. This they do by covering up the side effects of the marketing drugs and making the positive aspect of the drug so overemphasized that it becomes an easy decision for a practitioner to accept their claims on the word of mouth. This usually ends up jeopardizing the health of patients and putting their lives at risk which is uncouth for a profession whose aim is to help save lives. Most of the time, some medical representatives tend to get their drugs onto the prescription forms of practitioners by bribery. It will be difficult to name a number of medical representatives who cuts deal with pharmacists and doctors on the blind

side of the law since these goes on behind the scenes. This is very abhorring considering that health practitioners in such position should put money or wealth ahead of the lives of patients that they have sworn an oath to protect. Not only money but auxiliary tools of deception such as buying of lunch for medical practitioners by representatives as well as showering them with stationary tends to make it difficult for the health providers to say no to these medications some of which best described as suicidal weaponry. This is not to rule out the possibilities that some of the medications pushed by medical representatives is good. There are drugs that comes to stay for a very long time and some that are still on the market due to how good they are at helping patients and saving millions of lives of people at large. It is the wish of this paper and that of every good pharmacist that drugs, especially those that are new on the market, come with no and even if any, few manageable side effects than is really the case. This would make the work of pharmacists and doctors simpler. To help curb the menace of poor ethics displayed by medical representatives, it is recommended that the regulatory bodies of pharmacy such as the FDB take stringent measures to ensure that those who are in charge of promoting drugs do not put their personal interests ahead of the patients or ahead of their conscience. Also there should be well enforced regulation by the food and drugs board to help curb the this situation by educating and motivating pharmacists all over the country to serve as watchdogs to help bring to book those who will be found guilty of flouting the ethics of medical representation. If these, are put to effect, it will help reduce, if not root out fake and substandard drugs with its attendant and often irreversible side effects from this country. If we claim that health is wealth, then why should we put wealth ahead of the health of our patients?