i spin so ceaselessly till i lose my sense of gravity
Once aspect of my grad program this fall will emphasize trying to overcome barriers between corporate entities and the activist community, moving from antagonism to something approaching accommodation; I must say that I am looking forward to seeing exactly how my profs'll break my skepticism down, especially after things like this continue to pile up:
The resignation of Gilmartin, after he spent 11 years at the helm, came on a day when Merck was sharply criticized in a hearing into how the company and the Food and Drug Administration had handled the safety concerns surrounding Vioxx.
Merck and other drug companies say their "detailers" act as neutral educators to guide physicians in prescribing drugs, but the more than 20,000 pages of documents released yesterday showed that Merck's representatives were coached to be aggressive salesmen.
They were trained how to smile, speak and position themselves most effectively when talking with doctors, and were exhorted to sell Vioxx and other Merck drugs using the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.
Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) read from a Merck training manual that directed instructors to play a recording of the speech and then say to the sales force: "King was someone with goal-focus -- he kept getting shut down but kept going. . . . Just as with a physician, you must keep repeating the compelling message and at some point, the physician will be 'free at last' when he or she prescribes the Merck drug, if that is most appropriate for the patient."
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