Um estudo sobre a relação entre a indústria farmacêutica e a classe médica: o caso da promoção e divulgação da terapia de reposição hormonal masculina relacionada ao envelhecimento.

Abstract

This study sought to investigate how the process of promotion and disclosure of diagnostic categories and medications is characterized through a series of interactions in which the practices and discourses of doctors and professionals of the pharmaceutical industry influence each other, forming a network of exchanges and mutual support. The exchanges pertain to a set of objects (as gifts and drug samples), information, knowledge (in the form of articles and/or conferences), gentleness and social interactions that have in the dispensing of certain medication(s) their final purpose. The main objective of this research was to analyze the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and the medical profession in the process of promotion and disclosure of medicines and diagnostic categories, using a male hormone replacement therapy related to the aging process as a case of study. In order to achieve the proposed objective, we chose three main means of data collection: semi-structured interviews with doctors who are opinion leaders, prescribers of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) with testosterone (urologists and endocrinologists) and pharmaceutical propagandists of HRT with testosterone; ethnography of scientific congresses that have themes related to the object of research; analysis of materials used in an online pharmaceutical propagandist formation course. The scripts of the interviews were specific for each professional body and sought to approach topics such as the promotion and disclosure of the use of testosterone related to male aging process and the existent connections between the medical professionals and the pharmaceutical industry. A semi-structured interview was used as an instrument to collect data to search for information on the dynamics of interaction between pharmaceutical propagandists and the medical profession. The choice of the ethnography of scientific congress followed the assumption that inside these spaces it is possible to perceive an articulation between the pharmaceutical industry and the medical profession. The option of analyzing online course materials was due to the objective of knowing and investigating pharmaceutical marketing strategies directed to the medical profession to later make a parallel with the material on the testosterone TRH, collected during the research. The analysis of the material shows an articulation between the pharmaceutical industry and the medical profession at different levels. However, our objective was not to unravel something yet unknown or to prove an unproven hypothesis. That being said, we only aim to follow, in a specific context, some of the mechanisms through which such articulations are built so that they are hidden at the same moment in which they are realized.