Health Care & Prescription Drugs In The News

Pharmaceutical companies spend more than $7 billion marketing their drugs to physicians every year. A sizable portion of that money is spent on gifts -- trips, dinners, sponsored symposiums, equipment -- to physicians who are then lobbied to prescribe certain medications.

It is estimated that between $8,000 and $13,000 is spent per year on each U.S. physician.

Most doctors report that such aggressive marketing does not influence the prescriptions they write, but 84 percent of those same physicians believe their peers are influenced by pharmaceutical marketing, according to the survey published in the American Journal of Medicine.

We think the physicians are correct about their peers, but are overly optimistic about their own abilities -- be it conscious or subconscious -- to withstand such marketing pressure.

Later this month, the House is expected to debate a bill, already approved by the Senate, that would ban the giving of gifts by pharmaceutical companies to Massachusetts physicians who write prescriptions and to health-care institutions.

We think this a sensible idea that should be implemented as soon as possible.

Pharmaceutical sales representatives now spend most of their time marketing the most expensive drugs. It is no coincidence that prescription drug spending rose 500 percent between 2000 and 2005. Researchers estimate that nearly one-third of that increase can be attributed to aggressive marketing efforts.

The giving of gifts to physicians naturally gives rise to speculation as to what is being put first -- patients' well-being or physicians' and pharmaceutical companies' financial interests. Will the new, and more expensive, inhaler prescribed really improve a youngster's breathing or was the physician influenced by an all-expense paid golf weekend?

By banning the practice of gift-giving, Massachusetts legislators will help to remove such doubt from patients' minds and will relieve physicians from the concern that perhaps they are being subconsciously influenced by pharmaceutical company incentives.

The gift ban will aid in reducing the cost of prescriptions -- by eliminating the price of physician incentives and any tendency to lean toward prescribing more expensive drugs -- and will likely improve the quality of health care.

We urge the House to support the proposal to ban pharmaceutical companies from giving gifts to physicians and health-care institutions.