Totally agree with your second point. Add to that the fact that pharmaceutical companies market drugs directly to doctors which can yield prescriptions of useless drugs.
However, I disagree that they use normal marketing strategies with governments. They play politics instead. In this case they had the backing of the World Health Organization, and media outlets screaming words like pandemics every ten seconds. We all know that dead bodies don't look good on a politicians resume willing to run for reelection.
... But surely they prepared a lot of information to give to the WHO.
I agree that those materials were not glossy brochures and adverts with smiling mother and happy children, but those information packs are very definitely marketing and not just a dump of all the data they have.
That's partly why Cochrane had to struggle for so long to get the full data.
However, I disagree that they use normal marketing strategies with governments. They play politics instead. In this case they had the backing of the World Health Organization, and media outlets screaming words like pandemics every ten seconds. We all know that dead bodies don't look good on a politicians resume willing to run for reelection.