Drug company gifts to doctors

Shahram Ahari, who worked for two years as a sales representative for Eli Lilly promoting drugs such as Zyprexa and Prozac, described the his role as a rep as being to "to figure out what a physician's price is. For some it's dinner at the finest restaurants, for others it's enough convincing data to let them prescribe confidently and for others it's my attention and friendship...but at the most basic level, everything is for sale and everything is an exchange."

U.S. Moves to Ban, Limit and/or Disclose Drug Company Gifts to Doctors
In June 2007, Public Citizen compared the key provisions of U.S. state-based disclosure laws of drug company payments to medical professionals.

Massachusetts
In January 2008 the Massachusetts Prescription Reform Coalition, a coalition of groups working on healthcare policy, proposed new legislation aimed at curbing the cost of prescription drugs. (Coalition members include Health Care for All, AARP, Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group; the American Heart Association and health insurance companies Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and Neighborhood Health Plan.) The coalition proposed three key measures, which were:


 * "action to ensure that pharmaceutical companies do not use financial incentives to influences prescribers";
 * a ban on data-mining by which drug companies can fine tune marketing strategies that influence the prescribing practices of individual doctors.
 * substitute publicly-funded evidence-based information on drugs rather than relying on drug company provided marketing information.

In early March 2008, Massachusetts state Senate President, Therese Murray, proposed a bill which would ban all drug company gifts to doctors.

Minnesota
In 1993 the Minnesota legislature legislated to limit drug companies from giving gifts to doctors with a value of over $100 in a year. Under the legislation drug companies were required to "to report and make public any consulting fees paid to doctors", the New York Times reported.

Related SourceWatch Articles

 * National Legislative Association on Prescription Drug Prices
 * Physician Payments Sunshine Act of 2007
 * Shahram Ahari

External Articles

 * "Drug Company Payments to Doctors Often Exceed Recommended Limits; Data Widely Unavailable to the Public: New JAMA Study Investigates Failures of State Payment Disclosure Legislation", Media Release, March 20, 2007.
 * Joseph S. Ross, Josh E. Lackner, Peter Lurie, Cary P. Gross, Sidney Wolfe, and Harlan M. Krumholz, "Pharmaceutical Company Payments to Physicians: Early Experiences With Disclosure Laws in Vermont and Minnesota", Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 297 No. 11, March 21, 2007. (Only abstract available free)
 * Troyen A. Brennan, and Michelle M. Mello, "Sunshine Laws and the Pharmaceutical Industry", Journal of the American Medical Association Vol. 297 No. 11, March 21, 2007. (Only abstract available free)
 * Marc-André Gagnon and Joel Lexchin, "The Cost of Pushing Pills: A New Estimate of Pharmaceutical Promotion Expenditures in the United States", PLoS Medicine, January 3, 2008.
 * Kevin Freking, "Drug Companies to Reveal Grant Practices", Associated Press, April 11, 2008.
 * Scott Hensley, "Harvard Docs: Bring On the Drug Reps", "Health Blog", Wall Street Journal, April 17, 2008.