Are Drug Makers Influencing Your Doctor?
Dec. 23, 2004 — -- When patients visit their doctor for medical care and advice, most believe they are getting unbiased medical attention that puts the patient's well-being first.
But most patients are unaware that some doctors' advice might be affected by expensive gifts, lavish trips to luxury resorts, gourmet dinners and high-priced tickets to Broadway shows and sporting events.
These pricey gifts come courtesy of pharmaceutical companies as a way of encouraging doctors to prescribe their drugs to patients, even when those drugs are not recommended for the patients' illness.
"Some physicians become known as whores," said Dr. Jerome Kassirer, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine. "This is a profession in which we're taking care of sick people who trust us, who trust us to do what's in their best interest and not in our own best interest."
In his recently published book "On the Take: How Medicine's Complicity with Big Business Can Endanger Your Health," Kassirer describes the ways that big drug makers use the $21 billion spent each year on marketing their products.
"Almost all of that $21 billion, some, close to 90 percent of it, is directed at doctors," Kassirer told ABC News' "Good Morning America." "I don't believe the drug companies would be spending that kind of money on doctors if they didn't believe that it has an effect."
Industry analysts estimate drug companies spend $6,000 to $11,000 per doctor each year as part of their campaign to promote their drugs, including personal visits by drug company sales reps.
That money also permits doctors to travel to industry events in a luxurious style. According to one doctor: "They give you a room at the Waldorf-Astoria [hotel], pay for all your meals, fly you here. You get a limousine to take you from the airport and back to the airport, and give you $500 on top of that."
Other perks include free lunches for the entire staff of doctors' offices, trips to medical conferences at luxury resorts, golf clubs, tickets to sporting events and other gifts.
The single largest handouts, however, are free samples of medication. An estimated $11 billion worth of prescription drugs were given away to doctors in 2001.
