Healthy Skepticism Library item: 8967

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

Ricks D, Associated Press
Study: Drug companies hide gifts
Newsday.com 2007 Mar 21
http://trusted.md/feed/items/system/2007/03/22/dr_payola_the_truth_is_out_there#axzz1kcaQ0YLx

Full text:

Expensive gifts and cash are routinely given to doctors by pharmaceutical companies, and even in states where such payments must be disclosed, loopholes allow the largesse to be shielded from public view, according to a report on how the pharmaceutical industry influences the practice of medicine.

Dr. Peter Lurie, deputy director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, a watchdog organization in Washington, D.C., said that despite disclosure laws in five states, gifts still escape the public radar.

Lurie added that it’s important for consumers to know what kinds of gifts doctors receive because they may have a bearing on the kind of medication and care the physician offers.

“A patient may wish to look up the name of a doctor and determine whether that doctor is taking a large amount of money from pharmaceutical companies,” Lurie said.

Details of his research are reported in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association.

“The gifts may take the form of educational fees, cash, a check or a meal,” Lurie said. “These things are not benign. Social science literature makes the argument that even with small gifts, recipients feel the need to reciprocate in some way. If you’re a doctor, the easiest way to do so is to prescribe the company’s drug.”

But Lurie, who studied two states with disclosure laws – Minnesota and Vermont – said the numerous ways in which gifts can be hidden made it difficult for him and his team to root out the sources of the gifts and the payments they gave. The pharmaceutical companies described some information as proprietary information, which allowed the gifts to evade the public eye.

He said disclosure laws are important but they need to be tighter. Medicine is the only profession, he added, that allows such conflicts of interest.

Like most states, New York does not have a disclosure law. Only California, West Virginia, Minnesota, Maine, Vermont and the District of Columbia require physicians to report payments from pharmaceutical companies that exceed $100. Major teaching institutions, such as Stony Brook University Hospital, require the disclosure of money from outside sources, a university representative noted yesterday.

AMA guidelines recommend that gifts to doctors should not exceed $100 and should benefit patients. Other medical groups and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, an industry trade group, have similar recommendations. PhRMA attorney Marjorie Powell said many payments cited would be considered appropriate under the group’s guidelines, including money for research and medical education. She also defended companies’ rights to declare some payments trade secrets to keep competitors from learning about drugs under development.

Lurie said medications given to physicians as free samples are another issue that needs more public discussion. “Free samples are a subset of this,” he said of gifts, cash and other payments. “The whole purpose of the free sample is to get you to prescribe something you probably wouldn’t have prescribed. Samples drive people away from generic medications to flavor-of-the-month drugs.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.