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Drug companies go too far to influence doctors, critics say.

Article Excerpt
In doctors' offices, free drug samples and pens bearing the name of a drug are familiar sights. But doctors, legislators, public-interest groups, and attorneys are expressing concern that pharmaceutical companies' gifts to doctors affect what they prescribe. And the problem extends to medical education and research, they say.

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Drug companies pay doctors for consulting, speaking, and research, with some payments in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Critics say these arrangements allow big pharma to inject biased information into purportedly neutral arenas, and that doctors--let alone their patients--may be unaware of how deeply drug companies are involved.

To address some of these problems, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Or.) introduced the Drug and Medical Device Company Gift Disclosure Act on July 12. The bill would require drug and medical device companies to publicly disclose payments to doctors by registering them in a national database. Some states have similar registries.

In a recent survey of 3,167 physicians published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 94 percent reported some type of relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, most saying they received food and samples. Thirty-five percent were reimbursed for professional meetings or continuing medical education; 28 percent were paid for consulting, giving lectures, or enrolling patients in trials.

"The drug companies target leading experts with grants, gifts, and trips in order to sway their opinions regarding treatment regimens," said Christopher McCoy, a physician and member of the National Physicians Alliance, a Reston, Virginia-based group that supports registries. "As a result, our patients are paying more for their medications and are often prescribed brand-name drugs when other medications are just as effective."

"The drug industry is failing in its social contract with society," said Shahram Ahari, a former drug company representative who now works for the University of California...