Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15930

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

Two States Restrict Firms' Gifts to Doctors
The Wall Street Journal 2009 Jul 1
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124640634767976599.html

Abstract:

No more free lunch for some New England doctors — at least not from drug companies.

Under laws taking effect Wednesday in Massachusetts and Vermont, pharmaceutical companies and medical-device makers will be banned from giving doctors such gifts as resort trips or even coffee mugs.

As for offering free meals, Vermont bans the practice; Massachusetts greatly curtails it.

The laws grew out of a movement to more tightly regulate financial relationships between companies and physicians. They follow several scandals in which drug companies were accused of inducing doctors to …