Financial ties link some docs, drug companies

Source: AP

ST. PAUL Minn. - A groundbreaking Minnesota law is shining a rare light into the big money that drug companies spend on members of state advisory panels who help select which drugs are used in Medicaid programs for the poor and disabled.

Those panels, most comprised of physicians, hold great sway over the $28 billion spent on drugs each year for Medicaid patients nationwide. But aside from Minnesota, only Vermont and Maine require drug companies to report payments to doctors for lectures, consulting, research and other services.

An Associated Press review of records in Minnesota found that a doctor and a pharmacist on the eight-member state panel simultaneously got big checks — more than $350,000 to one — from pharmaceutical companies for speaking about their products.

The two members said the money did not influence their work on the panel, and the lack of recorded votes in meeting minutes makes it difficult to track any link between the payments and policy.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20379563

Should be done nationwide.

And think twice before you "ask your Doctor"!

interest is critically essential nutrients, for heart disease, neurological disease and xyz disease. FINALLY on medline papers are describing the crucial role of critically essential nutrients for various health concerns. One can only hope that the trend continues and some of the steam is taken out of the pharmco train that has had many of us on a set of rails to the intensive care unit.

Oh, wait...

Fat fucking whores.