Big Pharma Pays Doctors to Promote Drugs

One of the dirty little secrets of medicine today is how big drug companies pay doctors to prescribe their products.

Pharmaceutical companies recruit and pay doctors to speak on their behalf at conferences and conventions in lavish locations across the globe. Some physicians have earned more than $500,000 this way.

They provide unsolicited, independent educational “grants” to for-profit companies to continue educating doctors about their products.

They compensate their sales representatives based on the number of prescriptions written for their products by doctors.

In some countries, drug companies pay doctors to attend conferences at lush locations. China accused big drug maker GlaxoSmithKline of compensating doctors for travel to lectures and conferences that did not even exist, according to an article appearing in the New York Times.

Last year Glaxo was hit with a $3 billion fine and pled guilty to criminal charges that it illegally promoted drugs and withheld drug safety data from U.S. authorities.

The Wall Street Journal reports that payments to U.S. doctors involve huge sums of money. Glaxo reportedly spent $97.1 million and Pfizer spent a whopping $173.2 million on influence-peddling in 2012.

With all this money being thrown around, it’s hard for some to remain objective.

The U.S. government has taken a very tiny step to control the problem. They will begin to require all pharmaceutical companies to disclose these type payments as part of the new health care law. How they’ll enforce the law remains to be seen.

There’s also a website that reports on the payments made by 15 drug companies to health care professionals. See if your doctor or institution has received Big Pharma influence money.

Glaxo made the headlines just last week when it announced it was discontinuing its practice of paying doctors to speak at conferences, and would no longer tie salesperson compensation to the number of prescriptions written for its products.

Although we applaud this step by Glaxo, the company did not go far enough to curb its influence peddling. Glaxo announced it will continue its practice of giving unsolicited grant money to for-profit companies. For some companies it may be hard to provide objective information when their very existence may be tied to drug company grant money.

And other drug companies have remained silent, choosing to plot and ploy for ways to prescribe more pills and increase profits in a changing world.

Business and government could positively impact the issue. Many insurers and state health care systems dictate what doctors are allowed to prescribe. However, in my opinion, this is not working. Big Pharma tries to influence insurers and state health care systems too so, even though choices may be restricted, the selection options still may be impacted by drug company marketing money.

So how do you as a consumer protect yourself against the marketing ploys Big Pharma uses to get doctors to prescribe their medicines?

I believe the best way to insulate yourself from the influence of Big Pharma is to work with physicians that focus on preventing and curing problems, not just prescribing medications. Look for those that don’t accept money, gifts, stipends, grants, etc. from drug companies. Also look for physicians that place significant restrictions on sales rep access to themselves and their practices. Ask them about their policies so you are comfortable that their advice is medically-sound and not motivated by other reasons.