Healthy Skepticism Library item: 906

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

Olivieri N.
Physicians influenced
2005 Mar 24

Full text:

Arthur Schafer’s arguments (Can Your Doctor Be Bought For A Dinner? — March 14) have been misrepresented by Albert Schumacher (Doctors And Dinners — letter, March 22). Prof. Schafer has argued — and study after study supports his position — that many Canadian physicians are improperly influenced, albeit unconsciously, by the gifts, small and large, that they accept from the drug industry.

Although most physicians claim they are not influenced by such enticements, the industry knows these influences work. The U.S. drug industry spent approximately $2-billion in 2001 alone for meetings and events for physicians, a figure that represents a doubling over the previous five years. These companies are not charities.

It’s not just trips, but a range of conflicts of interest, from authorship of industry-sponsored (and often industry-written) articles, to payments for enrolling patients into drug trials. Such conflicts of interest create an atmosphere of public distrust and should be banned outright.

Dr. Schumacher’s contrary assertion, which he attributes incorrectly to Prof. Schafer, is not supported by facts. As for potential deterrents to which Dr. Schumacher refers, one Canadian company (which paid for doctors’ trips to a conference on the French Riviera) was indeed placed on probation and fined by Canada’s Rx&D organization for violations of ethical conduct (described by the company as “technicalities”) — but so what? As Dr. Joel Lexchin, a Canadian expert and critic in drug licensing and drug approvals, has noted, probation and fines may have questionable impact on a company that enjoyed sales exceeding $1-billion last year.

If Canadian doctors wish to earn back the trust of their patients, this is the time to rethink their willingness to sell their souls for drug-company gold.