The decision by GlaxoSmithKline
The decision by GlaxoSmithKline to distribute and promote drugs like anti-depressants to its market for unapproved uses raises critical ethical issues including giving unsupported claims regarding the safety of the products and bribing doctors to prescribe its medications to the consumers. According to Thomas and Schmidt, the pharmaceutical company not only attempted to induce physicians by paying for trips to Bermuda, but also engaged in various promotional tactics that included supporting the publication of a journal article that misrepresented the facts (n. p.). The practice shows that besides failing to accentuate issuing the correct information about its commodities to clients, the firm did not emphasize the safety but instead focused on other aspects, mainly profit.
Acceptability of the Company's Practices
The case of GlaxoSmithKline is not morally acceptable because it denies healthcare consumers the opportunity to discover the truth about the organization's medication and endangers the health of users. As Tawfik and Jabeen observe pharmaceutical corporations should concentrate on patients' care by guaranteeing the security of taking the drugs that they market (318). At the heart of the decision is the desire and commitment to make sure that doctors and prescribers enhance their knowledge of the goods before recommending and using them respectively. As an illustration, a treatment user who boasts an in-depth understanding of the effectiveness or safeness of a particular item may decide to buy it or choose alternatives. For these reasons, the solution by the firm to give unsupported claims about the pills and provide payment to physicians is ethically wrong.
Section B
Ethical Issues in the Promotion of Foods and Marketing Strategies Used by Firms in the Documentary
Some companies that are interested to distribute some drinks and snacks in countries like Mexico fail to disclose relevant information concerning the reliability and the nutritional value of their commodities. As a consequence, people who buy and consume them suffer from diseases and experience conditions like obesity and other lifestyle illnesses. In a documentary titled Globesity: Fat's New Frontier, some food and beverage enterprises position their items in the minds of clients to ensure that they become a critical part of their diet. What is more, other firms, for instance, Coca-Cola, enter into agreements with learning institutions to popularize their goods with the aim of establishing and maintaining their markets.
Acceptability of the Marketing Strategies
The commerce techniques that the organizations use are morally acceptable. While the food and beverage ones may endorse some merchandise rich in sugars and fats that adversely affect people's health, the strategies they use to uphold them are tolerable and standard. As an illustration, in the documentary, it emerges that many individuals in Mexico consider snacks as an important part of their parties. Accordingly, any business' desire to be associated with a certain entertainment or to promote its food and drinks is acceptable. In a similar vein, some companies' emphasis on signing agreements with schools to supply commodities is more or less adequate because various establishments, for example, organizations, school principals, and consumers benefit and are knowledgeable of their roles.
Section C
Principles of Conduct to Beverage and Pharmaceutical Companies
The government and customers should put in use the same guidelines of behaviour to medical companies as they do to snack and beverage ones. The reasoning is that although they operate in two distinct industries and provide different types of products to purchasers, they must meet their responsibilities to consumers concerning critical issues including labelling, safety, and quality. To illustrate this, drug and drink corporations must not only produce high-quality goods that meet the users' needs but also offer truthful information about the effectiveness of their items. The data may involve the nutritional value of soft drinks and foods and the ingredients utilized to manufacture them. In the case of entities functioning in the pharmaceutical industry, they may give relevant clues about safety and the side effects of their products. In the same way, various enterprises ought to emphasize consumer security through various approaches, for instance, monitoring creation procedures and assessing the complaints about the goods they offer. Hence, taking these issues into consideration, I utilize similar principles of administration to pharmaceutical organization as I do to other ones.
Works Cited
Tawfik, Kamilia.A., and Arshia Jabeen."Pharmaceuticals Safety Practices - A Comparative Pilot Study." International Journal of Health Sciences, vol. 7, no. 3, 2013, pp. 318-324.
Thomas, K., and Michael S. Schmidt. "Glaxo Agrees to Pay $3 Billion in Fraud Settlement". New York Times, 2012, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/business/glaxosmithkline-agrees-to-pay-3-billion-in-fraud-settlement.html?_r=0. Accessed 18 Aug. 2018.
