Drug Makers Are Still Giving Gifts to Doctors, F.D.A. Official Says

March 4, 2005
Drug Makers Are Still Giving Gifts to Doctors, F.D.A. Official Says
By GARDINER HARRIS

ASHINGTON, March 3 - Three years after the drug industry said it would stop showering doctors with expensive gifts, a top federal drug official told a Senate panel on Thursday that such marketing efforts continued.

The official, Dr. Janet Woodcock, acting deputy commissioner for operations of the Food and Drug Administration, said during a break in the hearing that drug companies still invited doctors on cruises and to resorts in exotic places, all free. The F.D.A. has no jurisdiction to police such efforts, she said.

Dr. Woodcock appeared on the second day of Senate hearings into her agency's oversight of drug safety.The drug industry has long spent billions of dollars annually - far more than it spends on research - trying to persuade doctors to prescribe its pills.

While it is illegal for drug makers to pay physicians directly for prescriptions, they once routinely offered free dinners, gasoline and even Christmas trees to doctors willing to listen to their sales pitches.Drug sales representatives also once passed out tickets to Broadway shows and professional sporting events to doctors who favored their products.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/04/politics/04fda.html?pagewanted=print&position=

this is what you are paying for

Does this practice occur in Canada and Europe?

I do and there is an effort among well respected academics to bring the point home--but it's really swimming upstream--medicine is increasingly becoming just another corrupt business in America

pledge. No meetings, no dinners, no presents-but I do keep some pens and notepads. I don't think that influences my decisons making process.

won't even accept the pens and pads. He's a stickler about that.

No one thinks any of these things affects their decision making.

Drugs reps sicken me - they are glorified prostitutes

I have a pleasant relationship with many of them. Most are professional and easy to work with. I do appreciate the samples, and I am willing to look at articles they recommend. They know that they don't make any difference in what I prescribe.

They are not visiting you out of charity. They used to visit me because of my good looks but then I took the No Free Lunch Pledge and I feel better now :-)

trusting me, "brother". Our county government is excellent in finding meds for patients, but we depend heavily on samples. It doesn't hurt to smile, shake a hand, and sign a receipt. My prescribing records show that nine of the ten most common prescriptions I write in my internal medicine practice are generics. The tenth is Lipitor.

where they ask residents if they would be willing to rent out space on their white coat to advertise for drugs, medical companies etc? The residents go "God no." Then they make a "swag count" to look at how many objects that a particular resident is wearing or using at the time of the test and it turns out to average about 7.5 items.

My sister-in-law is a Physicians Attendant. They get all sorts of gifts from Drug Reps. The office gets takeout from Olive Garden, Outback, etc. several times a week. She recently got a $250 gift certificate from Home Depot for Christmas. We get all our prescription drugs as samples free from her. When we get sick she brings bags of sample drugs, free. It is still going on.

AValdoux

if they have received anything from the drug co. when they prescribe something for me. It sounds blunt I know, but I also know I have been the victim of this in the past. Now I've always got my guard up. Maybe we should come up with some sort of a declaration and ask them to sign it. I don't want to cause tension in the relationship but I know some docs are writing a lot of unnecessary scripts and it's hard for a patient to know who to trust. When a person is suffering, it's easy to just go along with what they say. I think some of doctors take advantage of that. I always respect the ones that are hesitant to prescribe, more than the ones that are writing scripts at the drop of a hat.

My physician accepts free samples which he then gives to patients (often the first three days of a 10 day script). He says he accepts no other gifts. At least he knows it matters to me.

Are you aware that somewhere a child is suffering without needed medication because it is priced out of the realm of affordability so YOU can have that (free ham) (lunch at Olive Garden) (cruise) etc. etc.

when I returned from working in a refugee camp during the Kosovo war--you come back a little bent after something like that--and I would take particular pleasure in torturing this one drug rep about, "why the hell are you so worried about another f*cking nonsteroidal that makes diddlysquat difference in a study your company conceived, bought and paid for when in the thirty seconds that we have been talking 10 kids have died of maleria? If I worked at it long enough I could have him shaking with anger which was really pretty nasty--if you think about it--how the hell was he going to change the system?

a clue, or quit feigning outrage! If once in a while, they'd just listen to consumers or just drop by for unannounced spot checks occassionally, perhaps they'd know these things.

The FDA, JCAHO, and all accredidation agencies just are jokes. I have yet to see a JCAHO inspection that wasn't announced a year in advance or missed the targeted prepping of staff for the inspection. Our local hospital was inspected earlier this year and passed with flying colors--brag, brag--only to have an article appear in the paper a couple of weeks later that some patients in one area of the hospital were developing a rare staph infection with the identified source attributable to insufficient cleaning procedures for the shower area.

But I agree with you -accredidation is a big game. The docs I work with gladly accept gifts from the drug companies on a daily basis. One company even brought by micrwave popcorn for the nursing staff with their advertisements all over the bags!!