ABSTRACT
The real aim of seeding trials is to lure as many doctors as possible into using the new drug. In contrast to ordinary clinical trials, seeding trials are usually run by marketing people and salespeople try to influence the prescribing practices while they collect the data in the doctors’ offices. Close to one thousand doctors had permission to give talks at industry-sponsored meetings or educational arrangements. The drug companies received printouts tracking local doctors’ prescriptions every week so that they could see to which extent their doctor salesman paid back. That industry money corrupts the integrity patients expect of their doctors and their organisations was also shown in 1964 when the US Surgeon General released a report on smoking and health that condemned smoking. A notorious example of off-label use of drugs that has harmed hundreds of thousands of healthy people is the so called hormone replacement therapy.
