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U.S. doctors still too cozy with drug industry: report
CHICAGO |
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Doctors in the United States are still too cozy with drug companies, although they have managed to break some of those ties, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
The team at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital did a national survey of 1,900 primary care doctors in 2009 about their contacts with drug companies.
They found 84 percent reported some type of relationship with drug companies, compared with 94 percent in 2004.
About two thirds accepted drug samples, 70 percent accepted food or beverages from drug companies and 14 percent accepted payment in exchange for their professional services, they reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
"We found a significant decline overall in the percentage of physicians who have relationships with industry," Eric Campbell of Massachusetts General, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.
In the team's first study of industry ties in 2004, getting drug samples or accepting lunches or other food from drug company salespeople were most common, followed by payments from drug companies for attending medical meetings or continuing education seminars.
Since then, several government and academic groups have pressured doctors to sever their ties to drug companies.
Members of Congress, including Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, have been pushing to limit the influence of drugmakers over the practice of medicine after a probe showed a noted Harvard neuroscientist had failed to disclose payments from drug companies.
The moves appear to have paid off, Campbell said. Doctors in the survey say they now have fewer meetings with drug company representatives, dropping from an average of three a month to two.
But Campbell said the numbers are still unacceptably high.
He said doctors continue to think they cannot be influenced by free drug samples or a fancy lunch -- a notion he said defies basic social science.
"Cultures to the beginning of time have figured that gifts engender a positive response toward the giver. What's hysterical is the fact that physicians deny that these happen," said Campbell, who also teaches at Harvard Medical School.
"It's absolutely ludicrous to think that drug companies would spend all their time and money giving away this stuff if it didn't work."
(Editing by Todd Eastham)
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Doug McKee
Medical treatment for everyone is everyone’s business. We get sick from the people around us. We should appoint a number of analysts from different fields to study all insurance and medical involvement in healthcare to stop excess cost through waste, graft and corruption and excess, unjustifiable profits at a time when the market, as a whole, is under siege from too many customers. To leave Insurance agents, Hospitals, Doctors and Drug Companies in charge of designing, pricing, billing of all services connected to health care, including oversight, would be a conflict of interest. It would be similar to allowing all the Doctors to operate on their wives and children to bring them back to good health. Any business, big enough to have negative dynamic impact on the health and well being of a Nation should be met with some form of productivity and financial security oversight and continually improve its status through time. Any business that thinks its privacy is more important than the welfare of the Nation it resides in and services, needs to understand the importance of its Nation. Everyone understands the rights and obligations of owning a mom and pop store. Many people need to understand the rights and responsibility of owning a business as big as a Country with locations spread over the Entire Globe. When any one business or group of businesses becomes bigger than its country of origin, it could become a threat to that country we all call home. Some businesses want to fit in and just enjoy their prosperity, much like me and you. Some CEO’s are like Hitler and age driven by power and control. There is never enough of anything to satisfy their appetite for money, power and control. For all we know the financial debacle that just took place on Wall Street, Banking, Investment securities, Homes foreclosures and layoffs etc., could have been part of a failed Master Plan from some group that tried to weaken America and other countries before a takeover was implemented. President Obama’s quick infusion of money to save the markets could have crushed a group’s plans for takeover of our American Government. Their second phase of their master plan for civil unrest may never have matured also because of Obama’s quick infusion of money to save the markets. Will they try again?
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