Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19525

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

An Unhealthy Influence on Doctors
The New York Times 2001 Sep 10
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/10/opinion/an-unhealthy-influence-on-doctors.html

Full text:

The public image of the medical profession has been hurt by doctors who accept freebies from pharmaceutical companies. So the American Medical Association recently launched a campaign to remind its members about the A.M.A.‘s ethical guidelines. The campaign budget of $750,000 comes mostly from the pharmaceutical business.

Somehow, we have a feeling the A.M.A. has missed the point.

The medical association seems to be working with the corporations to combat corporate influence. But in reality, the campaign’s goals are not even that ambitious. The problem, as the A.M.A. seems to see it, is with the public, and the target is ‘‘the perception of conflict-of-interest.’‘

Not surprisingly, the rules the A.M.A. is trying to publicize lack teeth. They suggest that doctors avoid rewards for writing prescriptions and refuse gifts that do not aid their patients or their work. But doctors can still accept travel and meals while on the job, as well as pens, notepads and books. Compliance is completely voluntary.
Stronger action is needed to combat the very real influence of pharmaceutical companies on doctors’ behavior. On the other side of the $700,000 donated to the A.M.A.‘s campaign sits the $16 billion the industry spent last year on gifts and free drug samples. A sizable stack of research shows that doctors are more likely to prescribe drugs from makers who offer gifts, even if the drugs cost more and are no more effective than the alternatives.

Many doctors got into the habit of accepting gifts from pharmaceutical companies as underpaid residents or unpaid medical students, for whom a free lunch or textbook is a real bonus. But some medical schools are now trying to protect their budding doctors from developing bad habits. Columbia bars drug companies from offering meals on its campus, and one medical school professor has started a crusade called No Free Lunch that encourages his colleagues to refuse all presents. On the downside are published reports of Ohio doctors demanding that drug company salesmen pay for the physicians’ time as well as their meals.

It is hard for the patient to know whether a doctor is prescribing the best-promoted rather than the most cost-effective drugs. But when you walk into your doctor’s office and she’s using a Zoloft pen to write on a Zocor notepad next to a Zyrtec coffee mug, feel free to ask questions.