Of Chiara Daina | 23 March 2014 
At the fair of conflicts of interest Of Big Pharma not only cartels are found among giants, such as the one among the Swiss Roche and Novartis accused of having agreed to distribute Lucentis on the market, i.e. the most expensive drug for the treatment of maculopathy (1400 euros) against the similar low cost Avastin (15 euros). Alliances between doctors and pharmaceutical companies are the order of the day and there for all to see. But we don't realize it, because in the face of healthcare we tend to feel helpless, when we need to heal we only think about it and our survival instinct prevails, silencing the rest. Or we think the system works like this because it has always been like this. And in the meantime, there are those who take advantage of it.
A very recent case concerns the agreement between the National Federation of Medical Associations (Fnomceo) e Sanofi, a French drug multinational, according to which new members who have taken the "Hippocratic Oath" can collect, together with their card and membership number, a gift from Sanofi: the Reversi manual, 21st edition, a well-known ready-to-use Internal Medicine booklet, cost 99 euros. 71 out of 106 medical orders adhered. The others (for example Milan, Brescia, Ferrara) protested. "Precisely when many new young colleagues enter the profession, the name of a pharmaceutical company is effectively sponsored": is the reaction of Roberto Carlo Rossi, president of the Milanese Order. Amedeo Bianco, president of Fnomceo, pretends to fall on clouds and defends himself by saying that neither the speech nor the book contain promotional messages on Sanofi drugs. Too bad it's not just a product that is favored but the entire company. The exchange ends on
