Healthy Skepticism Library item: 10790

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Hearing Airs Rx Firm Influence over Prescribing, Medical Education
Integrity in Science Watch 2007 Jul 2
http://www.cspinet.org/integrity/watch/200707021.html#3

Full text:

The Senate Special Committee on Aging last week held an oversight hearing on drug company gifts and payments to doctors, prompted by growing concerns among state officials that the payments may be influencing patient care. For instance, the state of Vermont, one of only two states requiring reporting of physician payments by drug companies, revealed that psychiatrists averaged $50,000 in drug company payments in 2006, according to The New York Times. The committee also considered the drug industry’s influence over continuing medical education. The Washington Post reported drug and device companies now provide nearly two-thirds of the cost of the courses, influence what topics are covered, and may even encourage presenters to discuss unapproved uses of drugs. Public Citizen’s Peter Lurie testified that “as companies with a clear conflict of interest in promoting a specific product continue to influence physicians, the result can be prescribing based on marketing, rather than science.” Senators Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Herb Kohl (D-WI) vowed to push for legislation that would create a national registry of gifts and payments to doctors by drug and medical device manufacturers, similar to the registries that now exist in Minnesota and Vermont.