Rome, 22nd April. (Adnkronos Salute) - "The film 'The medicine seller' is an 'amarcord'. The pharmaceutical sector and prescriptions have for years been subjected to very strict supervision. The system of gifts and trips promised by informants to doctors in exchange for the prescriptions of their drugs is an ancient phenomenon". This was stated to Adnkronos Salute by Amedeo Bianco, senator of the Democratic Party and president of Fnomceo, the National Federation of Orders of Surgeons and Dentists, commenting on the April 29 release of the film 'The medicine seller' by Antonio Morabito, presented today in Rome by the director and the cast.
Bianco says he is ready to see the film, even if "unfortunately I don't go to the cinema much because I have little time - he observes - It is clear that there may be pockets of corruption in the system, but describing the doctor's work in the terms in which the film does is old-fashioned. Today - he adds - the reality is more modern and complex. There are colleagues who have to repay even 300 euros out of their own pocket just because they have prescribed three more packs of medicine than what is established by the procedures".
"So they speculate on health"
The pharmaceutical world protested with insulting letters from doctors and informants, while three days after the first take of "The medicine seller", the medical director of a hospital in Bari revoked the filming permit. Yet the bribing of doctors to sell more drugs by pharmaceutical companies is something that affects us all. But we almost never talk about it: «Because the pharmaceutical companies are the ones that advertise a lot everywhere, that's why the film breaks a taboo», comments Marco Travaglio, in the role of a tremendous head physician in Antomo Morabito's film, in cinemas since 29, played by a grim Claudio Santamaria.
Santamaria, who is your medical informant?
It is the last wheel of the cart, the arm. Nor is it the rampant who seeks to achieve a certain status, but one who lives in a perverse mechanism where the perpetrator is also a victim.
