Healthy Skepticism Library item: 17910

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: Journal Article

Spurgeon D
Doctors accept $50 a time to listen to drug representatives
BMJ 2002 May 11; 324:(7346):1113
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/324/7346/1113/a

Abstract:

A new American company called Time-Concepts LLC is offering doctors $50 (£34; 55) each time they listen to a short sales pitch from a drugs company representative in their office.

The new company receives $105 from the drug manufacturer each time it secures a consultation, $50 of which goes to the doctor, $5 of which goes to a charity that the doctor selects, and $50 of which it keeps.

Doctors are accepting the payments, despite the fact that guidelines from the American Medical Association specify that they should not accept cash payments from drug companies.

Dr Neal Moser, a pulmonary and critical care physician with a 13-doctor group in Edgewood, Kentucky, for example, told amanews.com, the American Medical Association’s newspaper for physicians, that he signed up because the plan lets him control when and how he talks to sales representatives. He said that it gave him a more efficient . . .