Drug marketing aids medical decisions.

• Position: Prescriptions

When it comes to giving samples and writing prescriptions, physicians are swayed by science--not by cozy relationships between themselves and pharmaceutical marketing reps or by advertising aimed at patients, maintains research from Emory University, Atlanta.

"Drug marketing has been portrayed like some scary movie where pharmaceutical firms are shoving drugs in our veins for the sake of profits, but that doesn't gibe with our results," notes Sriam Venkataraman, assistant professor of marketing. "Marketing can actually spur doctors and patients--and doctors and drug reps--to have more informative conversations about the benefits and side effects of drugs. Marketing isn't about buying off physicians."

The study contradicts the widely held perception that pharmaceutical marketing--directly to patients or doctors--adversely affects public health. The data yields five key findings, all of which illuminate how marketing affects doctors' decisionmaking:

* Marketing efforts are more successful for more effective drugs than less effective ones.

* Excessive marketing efforts actually can lower the distribution of less effective drugs.

* Marketing efforts are more successful for drugs with more side effects than those with fewer.

* Physicians will accommodate requests more often for drugs with fewer side effects.

* Doctors are more responsive to patient requests for more effective drugs.

"There is evidence that physicians rely on science while prescribing," Venkataraman emphasizes. "If a drug has many side effects, it's best to have a sales rep explain those side effects directly to a doctor rather than firms bypassing...