Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Gifts and payments to US doctors from drug firms are seen by some as encouraging unnecessary prescriptions. Do such transfers make any difference and will President Obama's healthcare reform help, by forcing companies to disclose them?
Prescribe enough drugs and - as detailed in 1974 Senate hearings - a doctor could accumulate points to exchange for a wide range of consumer desirables - colour TVs, watches, microwave ovens, lawnmowers, golf clubs.
The hearings were part of a campaign led by Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy, and exposed a culture that, since the 1950s, had become pervasive.
In the decades that followed, the pharmaceutical industry grew and the stakes got bigger. As more information about doctors' prescribing habits became available, more money was spent trying to influence them.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26890072
Prescribe enough drugs and - as detailed in 1974 Senate hearings - a doctor could accumulate points to exchange for a wide range of consumer desirables - colour TVs, watches, microwave ovens, lawnmowers, golf clubs.
The hearings were part of a campaign led by Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy, and exposed a culture that, since the 1950s, had become pervasive.
In the decades that followed, the pharmaceutical industry grew and the stakes got bigger. As more information about doctors' prescribing habits became available, more money was spent trying to influence them.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26890072