Study: Most doctors take gifts

[1vegan]

Link (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/04/26/study_most_doctors_take_gifts/)

Study: Most doctors take gifts
Survey suggests 95% get freebies from drug makers

LOS ANGELES -- Nearly 95 percent of physicians in the United States receive free food, beverages, drug samples, sports tickets, or other benefits from drug company sales representatives eager to influence their prescribing habits, according to a report today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Family practice doctors, who prescribe a broad range of drugs, were more likely to receive visits and gifts from sales reps than other specialist groups involved in the survey, researchers said.

Doctors in group practices were likelier to pocket fees for consulting or lectures than physicians at hospitals and clinics, which tend to have rules limiting contacts between the medical staff and industry, according to the report.

Campbell said the study was not designed to assess whether the relationships influenced doctors' prescribing habits or affected patient care. Nonetheless, he said, it was clear that many doctors benefited directly from the industry's marketing tactics and it was safe to assume that drug companies also benefited.

The industry spends more than $20 billion a year on marketing, he said, the bulk of which goes to physicians in the form of samples, lunches, and sponsorship of educational programs, among other things, according to previous research.

"If the companies didn't benefit from the relationships, they wouldn't be doing it," he said.


Maybe it's a thin line between informing doctors, and.... "bribes", and I accept that a lot of doctors might not have the time to do good research on meds themselves......

But I still don't like it.:no:

And I think U.S tv shows way too much commercials for all kinds of meds too :agree:


What do you think of it that "the industry" spends so much on "advertising/public relations" ?

[Cherie]

i thinik there is clear conflict of interest when a doctor profits or gains from patients continuing to seek medical care for "conditions" instead of treating the condition (assuming one actually exists and it's not made up).

[Gliondrach]

The drug companies have many lobbyists targetting governments, and spend a fortune on lobbying.

[Bowwowmeow]

What do you think of it that "the industry" spends so much on "advertising/public relations" ? They are strictly driven by money alone, and care nothing for the well-being and actual freedom from disease of their fellow humans. They deliberately design medications to reduce symptoms to a manageable level, without either
1) actually curing the disease,
2) freeing the patient from the symptoms completely, or
3) prematurely killing the patient.

All of the above would reduce profits, and are undesirable from the company's point of view. They don't need to test on animals for the sake of saving human life and eradicating disease; they do need animal testing to discover where that fine line is between killing, curing, and maintaining the disease. Chronic diseases with symptoms that are manageable, like arthritis, are the biggest source of income for pharmaceutical companies. No one dies of arthritis, and with the proper drugs, they can live a very long time with the condition, and hopefully, the side effects of the arthritis medication will cause several more chronic conditions that can be "managed' by even more medication.
Some doctors may still have the health and well being of the patient in mind, but in order to maintain their own incomes, turn to writing books full of actual helpful information, like Drs Weil, Barnbard, Ornish, McDougall, etc. They still profit from disease, but they make money off of telling people how to prevent it. Most other doctors are in too tight with drug companies, and profit off of maintaining disease rather than maintaining health in the patients.

I still say we should do like they used to do in China, where people pay their doctors while they are well, and stop payment when they get sick. That makes a lot more sense.

[veggiesosage]

One of the UK's most successful industries is the Pharmaceutical industry which as we know relies on animal testing. We also have a specific law which forbids anybody interfering with the contactual relationship with an animal testing company. It may not be a coincidence.

When I joined up with a new Dr some years ago I filled in a questionnaire which said at the bottom 'sponsored by Glaxo'. I know their name has changed and they've merged with others since but this was the company that developed Seroxat, possibly the most notorious anti depressant in recent years and subsequently withdrawn. I wonder how many people were prescribed this drug due to commercial considerations and had their lives messed up?

Money makes the world go round etc :hbang:

[my3labs]

I've been preaching about this for years...I'm so glad to see it in print in a reputable paper.
I read or heard something the other day that prescriptions have gone up dramatically since drug companies have been allowed to advertise on tv. I wish I could recall what the numbers were but I do remember that it was pretty significant. I'm getting a really bad attitude about advertising in general. The more I think about why humans do the things that we do, it all boils down to some big behemoth corporation advertising their shit on tv, radio and print.

Now that I think of it, I'm a total hypocrite since I'm in Marketing. I suck.

[Bowwowmeow]

Now that I think of it, I'm a total hypocrite since I'm in Marketing. I suck.:laugh: ;)

[1vegan]

They are strictly driven by money alone, and care nothing for the well-being and actual freedom from disease of their fellow humans. They deliberately design medications to reduce symptoms to a manageable level, without either
1) actually curing the disease,
2) freeing the patient from the symptoms completely, or
3) prematurely killing the patient.

All of the above would reduce profits, and are undesirable from the company's point of view.


This could have been my response to why I don't agree with or belief in stemcell research :)

[Gliondrach]

When people see new drugs advertised they ask their GPs for them. Which is why they are advertised.

Many drug companies have had warning letters from the regulators because of false or exaggerated claims in advertisements. The advertisements must be really very misleading if they result in warnings from the regulators. The regulators and drug companies are hand in glove. Well, the FDA is. A top safety expert in the FDA, David Graham, has said that the FDA considers that the drug companies are its clients, and that that relationship means that the FDA can't adequately protect the public.

http://www.newstarget.com/011401.html

[Bowwowmeow]

This could have been my response to why I don't agree with or belief in stemcell research :)
Well, they'll never stop testing this crap on animals, because they are too afraid of lawsuits, so I figure, test it on tissue grown from human stem cells instead, and save the animals from further torture. Like I've said before, if anyone wants my eggs to culture tissue from, they can have them free of charge. From a "curing" point of view, even if they find that they can cure things with stem cell research, they may not make the cures available to the public, but at least it could save the animals from any more experimentation, if applied in this way.