Big Pharma

Consumers International - Pharmaceuticals:
Big Pharma love to tell anyone who'll listen just how socially responsible they are. Yet when it comes to access to information about their marketing policies, the door slams shut.
Recommended by Mario Maranhao [mariomaranhao@uol.com.br]
"Studies by consumer organisations across Europe indicate that consumers are increasingly concerned about corporate ethics, particularly in areas such as fair trade and the use of child labour. If consumers are to act on these concerns, they need a well-developed picture of issues and consequences of their purchasing decisions on corporate behaviour.
Consumers International is responding to the call from consumer organisations for high-impact, coordinated European consumer awareness campaigns on issues of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The purpose of the project is to mainstream the concepts of Social Responsibility and CSR among European consumers by:
Establishing a core network of consumer journalists in coordination with the International Consumers Research and Testing (ICRT) CSR working group.
Providing resources for the group to meet and carry out one piece of investigative research, which will be disseminated in consumer magazines across Europe.
Campaigning and improving European policy on CSR by providing the consumer perspective on the issue.
By coordinating the consumer magazines to focus on the same issue simultaneously, the project hopes to sustain consumer interest and provide an unprecedented depth on one particular aspect of their consumption patterns. The initial momentum gained by the articles in capturing the consumer's attention on the CSR topic, will be further sustained by the follow-up campaign on the same topic, which will be coordinated by Consumers International.
The first topic that the media network will address is CSR policies and practices in Drug Promotion by Europe's largest pharmaceutical companies including:
Abbott, AstraZeneca, Admirall Prodesfarma, Bayer, Boehringer"